ר׳ עבדאללה סומך

ר׳ עבדאללה סומך (1813–13 September 1889), whose fuller Hebrew name was ר׳ עובדיה אברהם יוסף סומך, was the leading educator and a major halakhic authority of nineteenth-century Baghdad. Born there to ר׳ אברהם יוסף יחזקאל and Khatun, he traced his family to ר׳ נסים גאון. He studied under ר׳ יעקב בר יוסף הרופא, who called him his outstanding and discerning pupil, and also learned from ר׳ משה חיים. After marriage to Sarah he initially worked successfully in commerce. Concerned by declining advanced Torah study, he left business and taught a small group without payment. With patron Ezekiel Reuben Manasseh, this circle became Midrash Abu Menashi in 1840 and later the renowned Midrash Beit Zilkha, which he headed until his death. His students included ר׳ יוסף חיים, ר׳ אליהו מני, ר׳ אברהם הלל, ר׳ יצחק מג׳לד, ר׳ ששון שמוחה and many later leaders of Iraqi Jewry. Communities across Iraq, Persia, India and Central Asia sent him legal questions; surviving responsa show engagement with technological and social change as well as ritual law. His best-known work, זבחי צדק, systematized practical rulings and Baghdadi custom on Yoreh De'ah, especially shechita and treifot. It appeared posthumously, so its printing place must not be mistaken for a movement in his lifetime. During Baghdad's 1889 cholera epidemic he became ill near the city and died after being brought home. Conflict over his first burial caused arrests and anti-Jewish violence; about three months later Ottoman authorities permitted reburial in Baghdad's Jewish cemetery. His school and rulings helped connect Baghdad's rabbinic centre with the expanding Baghdadi diaspora throughout Asia.