Sassoon Heskel (1860–1932) was born into an established Baghdadi Jewish family with connections throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Like the majority of upper-class Jewish men of that time in Baghdad, he studied at the Alliance Israélite Universelle School, the first institution to teach secular subjects in the city. Upon completion of his secondary school sudies, Heskel continued his education first in Istanbul and then in London and Vienna, studying economics and law, eventually qualifying as a lawyer.

Heskel would put to use the foreign languages learned in his youth and the connections he made abroad to help build the modern Iraqi state in the twentieth century. Fluent in many languages (Arabic, Turkish, French, German, Persian, and English), in 1885 he returned to Baghdad where he worked as a consular dragoman (translator).

His political career began when the Young Turks came to power in 1908. He was elected as a deputy for Baghdad in the first Ottoman Parliament. He held that position until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. With the founding of the modern Iraqi state in 1920, Heskel became the first finance minister of Iraq, serving in that position until 1925. Subsequently,his, he was a member of the Iraqi Parliament until his death in 1932.

Heskel’s political career came at a critical moment in Iraq’si history, as it transitioned from being part of the Ottoman Empire to becoming an independent state. Heskel was one of only two Iraqis present at the 1921 Cairo conference convened by Winston Churchill to discuss the future of the Levant and Iraq in the post-Ottoman era.

As minister of finance, Heskel drafted the majority of Iraq’s first laws regarding taxation, customs, postage stamps, and the retirement scheme for government employees. One of the most important things to which Heskel is credited is his role in the country’s negotiations with Britain to invest in Iraqi oil in the 1920s over the concession of the Iraqi Oil Company. Heskel insisted that Britain purchase oil in gold shilling instead of paper currency, which proved critical to the Iraqi state’s financial well-being and economic development in the first half of the twentieth century.