No.16, Spring 2008
|
Journal of
the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center No.16, Spring 2008 |
Eli Amir:
A MAN OF VISION AND ACTION
The AHI Association held a special meeting to mark the publication of Yehuda Asya’s book Bridges of My Life. Asya’s book is another in a long series of autobiographical works by prominent Jews all over the world, of Israelis and Jews of Iraqi origin. Asya of course is all of these: an Iraqi Jew, a proud Israeli Zionist, and a man of the world.
The Jews of Iraq write about themselves more than any other community in Israel, relative to the size of their population. There are a number of reasons for this, including a long tradition of writing, dating back from the Babylonian Talmud, Gaonic literature and Responsa, a literature that is largely of a religious nature.
Asya’s book Bridges of My Life begins with his early life in Baghdad, his traditional roots, his first family and social ties, everyday life, relations with the Muslim surroundings and the desire for redemption in Zion.
Asya as a youth was restless, curious, very ambitious, and a visionary. He left Baghdad at a young age and took off for other worlds: Cuba, Japan, Bankok, Geneva, the United States, Tel-Aviv.
His book touches on issues of economics, trade and banking, Aliyah, integration and identity. No one before him, at least no one from the Iraqi Jewish community, has provided us with such a rich panorama.
I speak of Asya’s Iraqi origins despite the fact that he is a man of the world, with tremendous achievements, broad horizons and a familiarity with science, economics, policy and the arts. For despite all these, he remains an Iraqi Jew, deeply rooted in Jewish traditions, one of the few who still reads the Bible and the prayers in the classical Baghdadi manner we learned at school. How many of us are still capable of reciting the Bible in the traditional way? Asya did so, in the Tel-Aviv museum, of all places.
From a very early age he was attracted by the other, the foreign one. He fell in love with Fahima, a Christian girl in Aley (Lebanon). He hints that he lost his innocence with her, but does not say so explicitly. I felt a twinge in my heart as I read how he abandoned her in Aley and returned home. Small wonder, then, that a few years later he fell in love with Jeanette Ainsley, a Thai girl with an English father. He hovered around her, like a bee, sucked her honey and then flew away to America and then to Israel. He tested her severely before giving in to her, as a prince to his princess and a serf to his queen.
He does a good job of telling us the story of his love, like a young romantic poet, addicted to his love. This tough businessman, this decisive manager, this honest banker, captures our hearts with his great love for his “Ruth the Moabite”.
I hope that I am not falling into the trap of my profession as storyteller when I say that Jeanette Ainsley-Asya is his soul-mate. The two of them, like a pair of tutors, encouraged each other to taste of the cultural treasures of the world. They read together the works of Tolstoy, Dickens, Stephan Zweig, visited museums and became acquainted with the classics of the art world. They also went to galleries and bought beautiful, dynamic paintings.
Yehuda’s love of art led him naturally to engage in fundraising for the Tel-Aviv Museum. He pressured the then-mayor Namir to allocate a plot of land and offer contributions.
Yehuda’s love and hobby have turned him into a builder and a shaper of our national taste, by his contributions to museums and opening the eyes of the younger generation, native Israelis and new immigrants alike.
Yehuda Asya was a self-made man. Although he studied in both Iraq and the United States, most of what he knows he taught himself. Because he valued education so highly he established at the beginning of the 1950s, together with the late Shlomo Noah, the Fund for the Advancement of Education among Iraqis in Israel. They managed to raise between sixty and seventy million dollars at today’s values, making it possible for thousands of students, including myself, to complete their education.
Next Yehuda decided to see to it that students had computer rooms available in their schools.
From this the way to the Weizmann Institute was short. Along the way he met that greatest of fundraisers, the charming and legendary Meir Weisgal. The seed of love for science, the realization of its importance for the state and for society, grew strong in Yehuda’s soul. Otherwise we cannot explain his long-lasting obsession for the Institute, “my second home, which will remain in my blood and my soul for the rest of my life”. His love for the Weizmann Institute is almost erotic in its force.
Yehuda Asya has become the Meir Weisgal of the Weizmann Institute today. Prof. Harari, former President of the Institute, says that Yehuda raised about two-hundred million dollars for it.
Yehuda Asya, visionary and pragmatist is a romantic at heart, and pays attention to his intuitions and his heart. These lead him to the projects to whose completion he contributes.
Let us now return to the story of his life.
After a successful career in Japan and Thailand he went to the United States, with a suitcase full of gems. From there he took a trip in 1948 to Baghdad, to visit his family. Baghdad at that time was the scene of the funerals of soldiers killed in the war against Israel in 1948. Hatred for the Jews was at a peak. Yehuda says that this visit turned him into a Zionist and a more fervent Jew. He decided to close his businesses abroad and came to live in Israel.
No sooner did he arrive when he undertook to help the integration of Iraqi Jews. His first interest was in the basics: what do they eat? Who takes care of them? What work do they get? He calls for using Iraqi college graduates as a bridge between the newcomers and Israelis. Then he demands the construction of ritual baths for the women.
Yehuda Asya, Shlomo Noah and others organized Babylonian Jewry, asking veterans to assist newcomers. One can only wonder, how did this rich, much-courted bachelor, a wanderer throughout the world, obtain the wisdom to oversee the integration of new immigrants?
At no time throughout his life did Asya ever forget his roots. He never tried to hide them, although in those days Iraqis in Israel did not enjoy the greatest prestige, to say the least.
Yehuda Asya continues the tradition of philanthropists of Iraqi origin, like the Khedouries, Frank Eini, the Sassoons, Sala (Salman) and others, and strives to convince the haves to contribute to worthwhile causes. He moves with the power of his personality, his sense of caring and of justice, his generosity, and his talent for receiving help for the community. Asya is a man of values, who does not keep his spiritual and material treasures to himself alone.
