Talk:Joseph Safra

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This is off-topic from the article and I am moving it here. -- PinkCake 22:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

This article has two Safra's place of birth - one in the frame and another in the Early life chapter. is It would be good to note that his birthplace is not clear. There are some sources claiming he was born in Beirut, Lebanon https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/10/the-gherkin-sold-joseph-safra-brazil-720-million-pounds https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-joseph-safra-the-richest-banker-on-the-planet-2012-3 and others claiming it was in Aleppo, Syria. https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/The-worlds-50-Richest-Jews-11-20 It may be worth to check the Wiki article in German as there seems to have been done some deeper research. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Safra#cite_note-189.142.35.161 (talk) 11:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Correct place of birth for Mr. Safra
Reversals of Mr. Safra's place of birth have been going on on this page for well over a year. Anyone can check the history.

The two versions that have been advanced, both with some sources, are:

1) Joseph Safra was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1939.

2) Joseph Sadra was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1939.

From all the sources and knowing the histories of two regions, it is clear that the Safra banking family in general had their beginnings in Aleppo, Syria. And, as they migrated from the Middle East to Brazil, it is also clear that in this migration there was a middle point stop in between in Beirut, Lebanon. It is also clear that there are many financial and banking connections in the Middle East between Aleppo, Syria, and Beirut, Lebanon. The community of immigrants in Brazil from the Syria-Lebanon area actually calls itself the Syrio-Lebanese community. One of the highest economic elite country clubs in Sao Paulo is called the Syrio-Lebanese Club, and one of the biggest and most important academic hospitals in Sao Paulo is also called the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital.

As for Mr. Safra's precise place of birth in 1939, some sources give the place as Aleppo, Syria, and some sources give the place as Beirut, Lebanon.

Let us compile below a complete list of reliable sources as for his rightful place of birth, and then, once we have a complete list, including all the sources that give the exact place of birth, we can decide which sources are the most reliable, and use them to finally define the place of birth in the main page. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 16:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The German wiki, to take into consideration the previous section, currently says he was born in Beirut, Lebanon. The Portuguese wiki, for the place where Mr. Safra now resides, currently says he is from Beirut, Lebanon, with a parenthesis with a question mark saying he could also be, alternatively, from Aleppo, Syria. The task will be deciding which sources are more specific about his precise place of birth, and which sources are more reliable than others for the determination of this particular fact. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 16:52, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The independent says that he’s A Syrian born http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brazilian-billionaire-joseph-safra-buys-the-gherkin-for-700m-9851367.html Tariq afflaq (talk) 17:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The Jerusalem post states as well that he was born in Syria!!! https://m.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/the-worlds-50-richest-jews-11-20/amp Tariq afflaq (talk) 06:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The Independed article only says "The Syria-born Brazilian...", with no additional details about his date and/or place of birth. The Jerusalem Post article does say that he was born in Aleppo, Syria, and that he grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. But all the other sources we have below say that he was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and the Jerusalem Post does not add other details. The family's banking connections and origins as coming from Aleppo, Syria, as very clear and are also very clearly established in the article/page. Just yesterday I made the banking connections and origins of the family's wealth to Aleppo, Syria more clear and explicit in the article.
 * Joseph's father Jacob Safra's page only says that he is Syrian-Lebanese, which is also correct again. The source for the biographical details of Joseph's younger brother Edmond Safra, specifically states that Edmond, while coming from the Syrian-Lebanese family, was definitely born in Beirut, Lebanon. As for Joseph Safra again, which the Independent also calls "the secretive banking billionaire," he could have been born in Aleppo, Syria and then grown up in Beirut, Lebanon. Or, he could also have been born already in Beirut, Lebanon, as the majority of the sources we have say.
 * It is also clear, in any case, that the family, orginating from Aleppo, Syria, has started to migrate to Beirut, Lebanon, around the time of Joseph's birth, so again, he could have been actually born in either one. The family's migration history after Jacob Safra, is clearly going from Aleppo, Syria to Beirut, Lebanon, and from the to Sao Paulo, Brazil. And it is also clear that until the First World War the geographic boundaries and distinctions between Syria and Lebanon were very dim and porous. The entire Syrio-Lebanese area was under Ottoman control, and the boundaries again were very porous and written on the desert sands, not in stone. The entire area of Syria and Lebanon was basically one large economic and cultural unit under Ottoman rule.
 * The additional source you give below is in Arabic and I couldn't read or verify it at all. The entire Arabic page you give did not come up on my Google Books access. Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 19:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The Lebanese origins of the Safra family
Jacob Safra, father of Joseph, Edmond and Moise, obtained Lebanese nationality eventhough he was born in Aleppo in 1891 as can be seen here- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K69F-V4X

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VJ1K-FNS

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKDR-91QW

Since 1921, in order for someone to obtain the Lebanese nationality (even if born outside of Lebanon) HIS FATHER NEEDS TO HAVE BEEN BORN IN LEBANON as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_nationality_law and someone born in Lebanon to a foreign father no matter for how long that person resides in Lebanon CANNOT obtain citizenship as you can see in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization#Summary_by_country Only a foreign woman married to a Lebanese citizen can obtain the citizenship by naturalization.

This means that Jacob's father Eliahu/Eli, eventhough he resided in Aleppo which is where Jacob was born in 1891, HAD TO BE BORN IN LEBANON. So far I have not found a document that indicates where his father Eliahu and his brothers Joseph and David as well as his grandfather Yacoub were originally born (Ezra, another brother of Eliahu, uncle of Jacob, seems to have been born in Alepo according to https://farhi.org/wc131/wc131_428.html) but the fact the Jacob got Lebanese citizenship increases the likability that his father Eliahu was born in Lebanon.

Marie Dwek (2nd wife of Jacob Safra) who obtained Lebanese nationality due to her marriage to Jacob- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKDR-9172

All of the children of Jacob and Esther Safra (Moise, Edmond, Joseph and the rest) were born in Beirut and had Lebanese nationality as can be seen here

-Joseph- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V1S7-YCM

-Edmond- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKDR-9V4X

-Moise- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKDR-9VZQ

-Hughete- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKDR-9135

-Arlette- https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2S7-VVJN

Jacob Safra's uncle, Ezra Safra, the founder of Safra Feres Co. in Aleppo, died in Aley, Lebanon in 1951 as can be seen here https://farhi.org/wc53/wc53_335.html and is buried in Beirut as can be seen here https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/BeirutCemeterySearchEngine.php?NoKind=exact&NoMax=&SurnameSoundex=S160&SurnameKind=sounds&SurnameMax=Safra&GivenNameKind=contains&GivenNameSoundex=&GivenNameMax=&FathersNameKind=exact&FathersNameMax=&SpousessurnameKind=contains&SpousessurnameSoundex=&SpousessurnameMax=&SpousesGivenNameKind=contains&SpousesGivenNameSoundex=&SpousesGivenNameMax=&GenderKind=exact&GenderMax=&GregorianDateofDeathDayKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathDayMax=&GregorianDateofDeathMonthKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathMonthMax=&GregorianDateofDeathYearKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathYearMax=&HebrewDateofDeathKind=exact&HebrewDateofDeathMax=&AgeyearsKind=exact&AgeyearsMax=&TombstonematerialKind=exact&TombstonematerialMax=&StateofGraveKind=exact&StateofGraveMax=&NotesKind=exact&NotesMax=&offset=1&pagesize=20

Jacob Safra's wife, Esther Safra (Jacob's cousin), and mother of Joseph, Edmond and Moise also died in Beirut in 1943 and is buried in Beirut as can be seen in the above link.

In Lebanon, there is a village called Safra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safra,_Lebanon and they could come from there or settled there for many generations and got their name from there. The Safras were Mizrahi and spoke Arabic, lets not forget that. When sources say they were Sephardic Jews it actually means they adopted the Sephardic rites and perhaps Ladino language into their family when they mixed with exiled Sephardic Jews from Iberia.

Some sources say that the Safras were originally merchants from northern Lebanon such as this one https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/oct/29/features.magazine47

Its important to understand that just because a merchant or a merchant family traded in Aleppo and established business there and one or two generations were born there does not mean the family has to be originally from Aleppo or Syrian.

A Halabi and the Halabi surname also means those who traded with Aleppo, not just those who are from originally from Aleppo, which is why there are a various Lebanese Christian families with the surname Halabi/Halaby/Halabe as you can see in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabi_(surname). This Halabi merchants traded in Istanbul, Aleppo, Beirut and Cairo/Alexandria and where involved in the domestic/regional/terrestrial trade in that network usually of silk and cotton. A couple of examples are:

-Najeeb Halabi, former CEO of Pam American Airlines and father of Queen Nour of Jordan, whose father emigrated to America from Zahle, Lebanon. Najeeb Halabi thought his ancestors originally came from Aleppo because of his last name but there is no evidence of this and his ancestors could have just been Halabi merchants from Lebanon, not necesarily from Aleppo per se as discussed by Henry Louis Gates in Faces of America in https://books.google.se/books?id=meYbj1E6Ki8C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=Almas+Mallouk+Halaby&source=bl&ots=rFkkzjZFO4&sig=ACfU3U3hlqMIm1wobTTCA4erRHx_BTcK9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij6KK667PoAhXPwosKHYUUDyEQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Almas%20Mallouk%20Halaby&f=false.

-The Daher family of France founders of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daher. The Daher family was a Halabi family that traded wool and cooton that arrived to France from Alepo in the 1850s https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Daher. Some of the families far back ancestors married in Istanbul. https://gw.geneanet.org/wikifrat?lang=en&p=paul&n=daher. However the Dahers are a Christian family originally from Lebanon, having settled there from Iraq in 1600 (original spelling is Dagher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daher_(disambiguation).

-The Sedaka/Sadaka jewish family of Lebanon that was also a Halabi family that traded with Aleppo-Istanbul-Beirut-Cairo which is why Neil Sedaka's grandparents were born in Istanbul and came with his family from there. The Sedakas/Sadaka is a jewish family originally from Lebanon as you can see in the Montefiori census that the family lived in Sidon in 1839 and in Beirut in 1849 here https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/LebanonSurnamesSearchEngine.php?SurnameKind=exact&SurnameSoundex=&SurnameMax=Sadaka&SourceIKind=exact&SourceIMax=&SourceIIKind=exact&SourceIIMax=&SourceIIIKind=exact&SourceIIIMax=&SourceIVKind=exact&SourceIVMax=&NotesKind=exact&NotesMax=&offset=1&pagesize=20 You can see the oldest burials there is record of the Sadaka family in the Jewish cementery of Beirut here https://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/BeirutCemeterySearchEngine.php?NoKind=exact&NoMax=&SurnameKind=contains&SurnameSoundex=&SurnameMax=Sadaka&GivenNameKind=contains&GivenNameSoundex=&GivenNameMax=&FathersNameKind=exact&FathersNameMax=&SpousessurnameKind=contains&SpousessurnameSoundex=&SpousessurnameMax=&SpousesGivenNameKind=contains&SpousesGivenNameSoundex=&SpousesGivenNameMax=&GenderKind=exact&GenderMax=&GregorianDateofDeathDayKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathDayMax=&GregorianDateofDeathMonthKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathMonthMax=&GregorianDateofDeathYearKind=exact&GregorianDateofDeathYearMax=&HebrewDateofDeathKind=exact&HebrewDateofDeathMax=&AgeyearsKind=exact&AgeyearsMax=&TombstonematerialKind=exact&TombstonematerialMax=&StateofGraveKind=exact&StateofGraveMax=&NotesKind=exact&NotesMax=&offset=1&pagesize=20Chris O&#39; Hare (talk) 14:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

How come his father is Syrian and he’s not?!! Wikipedia itself states that Jacob Safra is a Syrian Lebanese!! Read this book saying Jacob Safra was a Syrian Jewish https://books.google.ae/books?id=vrcuAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA141&dq=Jacob%20Safra%20syrian&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q=Jacob%20Safra%20syrian&f=false Tariq afflaq (talk) 07:35, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Forbes says: Moise Safra, a Brazilian banking billionaire, passed away on June 15, 2014, reportedly due to complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. Born into a wealthy Syrian Jewish banking family in Aleppo, and Wikipedia says:Jacob Safra is a Syrian Lebanese, how come Joseph isn’t Syrian ?!!! https://www.forbes.com/profile/moise-safra/ Tariq afflaq (talk) 08:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

How could his father be Syrian but Joseph isn’t? Tariq afflaq (talk) 16:14, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The Syrian-Lebanese community in Sao Paulo, Brazil
As I have explained above, the "Lebanese Brazilian" community concentrated mostly in the mega-urban area of Sao Paulo, Brazil, does not really calls itself the "Lebanese Brazilian" community as it might appear from the Wikipedia article linked above. It actually calls itself the "Syrian-Lebanese" community in Brazil. Their major social country club is called "Clube Sirio-Libanes" (Syrian-Lebanese Country Club), and the major hospital and charity organization they created and maintain in Sao Paulo is called "Hospital Sirio-Libanes" (Syrian-Lebanese Hospital).

All this is intended to clarify that historically there is not in Brazil just a "Lebanese Brazilian" community. That community, historically has always called itself the "Sy rian-Lebanese" community in Brazil. This fact is grounded in the historical reality that until the First World War there wasnt' much of a cultural and linguistic separation and distinction between immigrants in Brazil that originated in the large Syria and Lebanon area of the Ottoman Empire. The entire area of Syria and Lebanon was not really divided into defined and distinct Syrian and/or Lebanese "naLetionalities." These separation and distinction between two separate "nationalities" started only after the end of Ottoman rule in the Middle East, after the First World War.

If these historical facts and distinctions are understood, it may be easier to correct the Wikipedia articles, and to finally state that Mr. Safra and the Safra family in Brazil are not "Lebanese Brazilian" as the article currently says, but are actually "Syrian-Lebanese Brazilians," as the members of the communities actually call themselves in Brazil. warshy (¥¥) 20:43, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I went and looked on the Portuguese Wikipedia and I found the Hospital I described above, but not the Club, which still, certainly needs and deserver a WP entry. But then I see this Brazilian immigration issue is so famous and so important the even the English Wikipedia already has an entry for the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There! warshy (¥¥) 21:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * By the way, the Syrian-Lebanese Country Club (Clube Sírio-Libanês) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I mentioned above, and which does not have a WP page/article yet, is all the way as big and as important (and as rich and as sumptuous) in Brazil and in South-America as the Hospital above. warshy (¥¥) 21:26, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The Syrian aleppine origin of the safras
According to two annual reports by J. Safra Sarasin, a private bank owned by Safra Group, the Safra family originally came from Aleppo and then relocated to Beirut.

(Page 28) https://publications.jsafrasarasin.com/publ-dl-ch/dl-discl?dl=381995ECA9162A691ED93C5EA7E24B5482EEA3F979F183D257B761138A22C59BAEB08CF731936604DFD5A77DA4A81D6D

(Page 18)

https://jsafrasarasin.com/content/dam/jsafrasarasin/company/bank-annual-report/annual_report_2015.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf

A book published on the official website of Edmond Safra, and has the signature of Edmond's wife, says the Safra family originally came from Aleppo and then relocated to Beirut. Page 6, version 2015.

https://www.edmondjsafra.org/book/ Whatsupkarren (talk) 11:15, 2 February 2024 (UTC)