however this merchant elite whose firms amassed fabulous wealth, employed a great many of the baghdadi jewish community, whilst running the community’s religious institutions and funding its charitable system, numbered less than forty families. the rest were shopkeepers, pedlars, brokers, artisans, factory workers or clerks. as a rule the community stuck to trade, finance and commerce with relatively few of the baghdadi jewish community entered either government service or the professions. as many as fifty percent of the baghdadi jewish community of kolkata was poor and dependent on communal jewish charity.