The Papers of Eli S. Malka

Eli S. Malka, z"l" (1909-2003) was born, raised, and worked in the Sudan. The eldest son of the Chief Rabbi Shlomo Malka, he was president of the Sudan Jewish community, vice-president of the B'nai B'rith Khartoum Lodge, and CEO of Gellatly Hankey Trading Co, the largest British firm in the Red Sea area. The Sudan was at the time a British colony. After the Sudan gained independence, Eli Malka and the rest of the Jewish community left the Sudan for safer shores mostly in Switzerland, England, and the USA.

In his book Jacob's Children in the Land of the Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan (Syracuse University Press, 1997) Malka wrote the history of the Jewish community of the Sudan from its earliest days in the 19th century to its final times. Positioned at the center of both the Sudan Jewish community as the son of the Chief Rabbi and its past president, and of the British rulers as the CEO of their largest firm in the area, with numerous contacts among the Sudan's leading politicians and merchants, Malka was in a unique position to write this detailed history. A book about which Professor Henry Feingold wrote "… was told by a man whose family was at the very center [Malka] knows all there is to know about this community." Eli Malka remained active in business and Jewish affairs and passed away in White Plains, NY, on November 6, 2003, the eve of his 94th birthday.