Dr. Geraldine Gudefin
About
geraldine.gudefin@gmail.com
Geraldine Gudefin is a historian of modern Jewry specializing in migration, family life, and legal pluralism.
Currently a Visiting Scholar at the National University of Singapore, she holds a PhD from Brandeis University.
Her research has transitioned from exploring Jewish family law in France and the United States to examining the Baghdadi Jewish diaspora.
Her current project investigates the intersection of Jewish matrimonial law and common law within Baghdadi communities in Asia.
Gudefin’s work highlights the legal negotiations and cultural adaptations required by Jewish migrants as they moved across diverse legal jurisdictions.
Lecture Abstract:
In 1929, Najia Noori Reuben Shirazi, a fifteen-year-old Jewish woman from Basra, Iraq, received an enticing proposal. Two relatives of a man named David Sassoon Ezekiel had traveled from Bombay to their native homeland in search of a bride for him. After interviewing twenty young women, they selected Najia, finding her “the prettiest.” For Najia—raised in an impoverished family—the offer promised a path to stability and mobility. She agreed to a betrothal by proxy and set sail for India. Yet upon arriving at the Bombay wharf and meeting David, she instantly regretted her decision. Her refusal to proceed led to a remarkable series of legal proceedings in British colonial courts, as Najia sought recognition that she was not bound in marriage to David. Najia Noori Reuben Shirazi v. David Sassoon Ezekiel illuminates the entangled worlds of marriage, migration, and law that connected Jewish communities across the Indian Ocean. The case reveals how Baghdadi Jewish families negotiated kinship through maritime mobility, and how legal pluralism shaped the intimate lives of women navigating multiple jurisdictions. While historians have long noted that Baghdadi Jewish men sought brides from Iraq, the process—from matchmaking and betrothal to the lived realities of cross-border marriage—has rarely been documented. Through legal records and press coverage, including the 1930 cross-examination of Najia and her mother in the Bombay High Court, this paper reconstructs the gendered dynamics of diasporic marriage-making and the challenges of sustaining family networks across the sea. It situates Najia’s story within the broader context of class, gender, and mobility that defined Jewish life along the maritime routes linking the Middle East and South Asia.