Kabīr, Abraham Ṣāliḥ al-
KABĪR, ABRAHAM ṢĀLIḤ AL-
KABĪR, ABRAHAM SĀLIH AL- (1885– ), Iraqi official. Born in *Baghdad, al-Kabīr received a legal education and was at first employed in various banks, later joining the Iraqi treasury service; he held important and responsible positions, especially at the time when Ezekiel *Sassoon was finance minister. Al-Kabīr also played an active role in Jewish communal life, and in 1946 testified before the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on the discrimination practiced against Jews by the Iraqi authorities. He settled in London in the 1960s.
Abraham Ṣāliḥ's brother, joseph, also born in Baghdad, was a lawyer and communal worker. Al-Kabīr was at first employed in the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, but from 1925 he maintained a private law practice. From the early 1930s he lectured at the Baghdad School of Law on private international law and comparative law. He published his lectures in two books (in Arabic). As a member of the general council of the Jewish community of Baghdad from 1932, he was among the critics of the community's administration by its president Sasson *Kadoorie and published a pamphlet on this subject (Baghdad, 1944). In 1935–36, he represented the Jews of Baghdad in the Iraqi Parliament.
[Hayyim J. Cohen]