Shinah, Selman

views updated

SHINAH, SELMAN

SHINAH, SELMAN (1898–?), Iraqi lawyer, politician, and Hebrew writer. An officer in the Turkish army in World War i, Shinah was captured and exiled to *India until 1919. He was elected the Jewish representative in the Iraqi parliament in 1947 and 1949. He founded the Hebrew Writers' Union in 1920 and published a Zionist weekly in Arabic, Al-Miṣbāḥ ("The Menorah"), which lasted until 1929. He settled in Israel in 1951. His autobiography, Mi-Bavel le-Ẓiyyon ("From Babylon to Zion"), appeared in 1955.