Every Friday morning I eagerly open my email and look for the latest issue of La Boz Sefaradi / The Sephardic Voice, the Brotherhood’s weekly E-Newsletter and “Voice of the Sephardic Community in America.”
A regular feature in the weekly newsletter is the Zemirot of the Week, which are “a wide range of beautiful liturgical tunes that have become integral to Sephardic religious practices. They are known as piyutim, pizmonim, and maftirim, and are incredibly complex with rich social and cultural histories that have developed over hundreds of years.” Every week, a new Zemirot is published in relation to an upcoming holiday, sung by a renowned Hazzan in the Sepharadi or Romaniote tradition.
Many of the Hazzanim featured in the Zemirot of the Week attended Istanbul’s Talmud Tora or Mahazike Tora (aka Hebrew School), as did my father, Dr. Isak Kohenak, A”H, which was founded by Rav Nisim Behar, Z”L, in the 1940s. Some of these students became famous rabbis and or hazans in their own right in Türkiye, Israel, and Mexico, and other countries.
As they became famous, many of the hazanim were recruited by Sepharadi communities around the world for permanent positions or as guest hazanim during the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays). For example, Hayim Afya, Yosef Bichachi and Refael Kalaora who have been featured on Zemirot of the Week, are hazans at Shaar Hashamayim, the Turkish Sepharadi congregation in Mexico City. My wife Susan and I met Hazans Afya and Bichachi during our trip several years ago with Ladinokomunita, the internet chat group, founded by Rachel Amado Bortnick. Hazan Bichachi even gave me a copy of his CD Zimbrat Libi as a gift, since he knew my father from Türkiye.
Others such as Hazans Refael Abuav, Yakov Kohen, Baruh Hasson, Avraham Avdan Kohen, and Rabbi Eliyahu Kohen made Aliyah to Israel, and they either officiate or participate in kehilas which serve Turkish Jewish communities which emigrated to Israel and settled mainly in Bat Yam.
Years ago, the Sephardic Jewish Center of Forest Hills (NY), one of the affiliate synagogues of the Brotherhood, used to invite guest hazanim during the Yamim Noraim. Hazanim who officiated with Rabbi M. Asher Murciano, A”H’, throughout the years included Jo Amar, Z”L, Aaron Bensoussan, and as recently as 5-6 years ago, Israeli Hazan Natanel Kohen.
Another invitee one year for the Yamim Noraim at the Sephardic Jewish Center, was Hazan Refael Abuav, Z”L, who was a classmate of my fathers at the Mahazike Tora. When we walked into the sanctuary, Hazan Abuav recognized my father. At an appropriate break from the prayer he was leading at the time, Hazan Abuav stepped down from teva, and came over to my father to give him a big hug, since they were friends and classmates at the Mahazike Tora. Rabbi Murciano and the rest of the congregation stared at them in amazement. The service stopped for a few minutes until Hazan Abuav returned to the teva! Sadly, Hazan Abuav, we learned years later, died as a result of a heart attack after his apartment building was bombed during a terrorist attack.
During our first visit to Israel in 2005, we attended Kabbalat Shabbat services at a synagogue built in honor of Rav Nissim Behar by his former students. Our escort was one of Rav Nissim Behar’s nephews, who also happens to be my cousin: his mother was Nissim Behar’s sister, and his father was my father’s “primo ermano” (first cousin). When my cousin was introducing us to the other congregants, many originally from Türkiye, a gentleman by the name of Yakov Kohen came over to us and introduced himself.
My cousin interjected, and he said the gentleman was Hazan Yakov Kohen, another one of The Zemirot of the Week hazans. Hazan Kohen said that he was a student of my father’s at the Mahazike Torah, when my father was teaching there before attending Istanbul University Medical School and my father was one of the best teachers he had! He asked if we were coming back because he wanted to record a cassette tape to give to my father, who was still alive at the time. We did; the hazan recorded words of thanks for my father on the cassette with a rendition of Hadesh Kekedem Yamenu, a piyut sung in a Turkish melody, which can be found in many different YouTube postings sung by Hazan Kohen.
Rav Nissim Behar died October 1990 in Israel. On June 13, 1990, four months before his death, his former students from the Mahazike Tora gathered at the Tel Aviv Hilton and honored him at a Gala Dinner. In addition to those already living in Israel, his former students, some of whom themselves became rabbis and hazans, came from Türkiye, France, and other countries to honor Rav Behar. The “Gala” dinner, which lasted over four hours, was recorded and was posted years later on YouTube in four, 1-hour segments. Many of the hazans who were his students, and have their recordings on Zemirot of the Week, attended the “Gala” and appear on the YouTube videos.
All of this is today how amazing it is that our Sepharadi communities now have Zemirot.org and the Zemirot of the Week as an amazing resource to learn our own Sephardic liturgy, from hazzanim and Rabbis that have all spread throughout the world in service of de los muestros.
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