Nahum, Aaron Sasson ben Elijah
NAHUM, AARON SASSON BEN ELIJAH
NAHUM, AARON SASSON BEN ELIJAH (c. 1872–1962), educator and communal worker in *Iraq. From 1920 he was chairman of the Zionist Organization in Iraq; his Zionist work was done underground because of Iraqi persecution of the Zionist movement. In 1920 he helped found a Hebrew Literary Society in *Baghdad. He was the founder and, from 1924 to 1935, director of Pardes Yeladim, a school which fostered the use of Hebrew. In 1935 he settled in Palestine, where he continued to work as an educator. In 1920 he founded a Hebrew-Arab weekly in Baghdad, Yeshurun, of which only five numbers appeared. Under the pseudonym of "Ha-Moreh," he published a book of poems, Sefer Shirei ha-Teḥiyyah, containing translations and original works (2 parts, 1925; part 3 in 1931). His poems express his longing for Zion. In Palestine he also published a number of booklets, in which he appealed for religious observance.
bibliography:
H. Ben-Yoseph, in: Ba-Ma'arakhah, 2 (March 1963), 15; H.J. Cohen, Ha-Pe'ilut ha-Ẓiyyonit be-Iraq (1969), passim.
[Abraham Ben-Yaacob]