against this background the rich fabric of community institutions and charitable support networks unravelled with the departure of the remains of the merchant family elite. the closing of the b.n. elias mills in 1973 deprived many baghdadi jews of jobs and formed one of the final blows to the jewish community in the city. without the historic leadership and charity of the merchant families communal life became hard to maintain. barely 200 jews remained by the mid-1990s. lack of opportunities for both business, high quality eduction and in particular for jewish marriages in kolkata speeded up the community's dissolution in the late twentieth century. by the early twenty-first century less than twenty jews remained in the city.