L’Moledet Shuvi Roni: Asher Mizrahi’s Biblical-Zionist Romance
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The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi Ideas Monthly (SIM) is a continuing series of essays and interviews from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought and culture that is delivered to your inbox every month.
While all Jews share a common history, sacred canon, and yearly cycle of holidays, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish life differed from Ashkenazi Jewish life by creating communal spaces for singing Hebrew songs outside of the formal prayer setting. Across North Africa and the Middle East, Hebrew songs were composed and communally sung throughout the winter as part of the institution of shirat baqashot, ‘songs of seeking,’ as well as on festive familial and communal occasions. Once these musical spaces migrated from Shabbat to the six days of the work week, instrumental accompaniment was added to the lead vocalist and orchestrations began to flower in dialogue with the surrounding cultures. Over time, implicitly cosmopolitan musical traditions characterized by sacred and profane dimensions became an integral part of the Greater Sephardi Jewish experience and were transmitted from generation to generation, down to us.
(Photo courtesy of the Sepahrdic Pizmonim Project)
One of the great 20th c. practitioners of this tradition was Asher Shimon Mizrahi (1890-1967), a poet, lyricist, musician, cantor and prolific composer who wrote more than 600 songs in Hebrew, Arabic, and Ladino. Born in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, Mizrahi twice migrated to Tunisia, the first time to avoid conscription into the Turkish army during the Balkan war of 1912-13, the second time to flee threats on his life from followers of the Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini following the 1929 Islamist pogroms on Jews across the Land of Israel. Mizrahi returned to Jerusalem in August, 1967, shortly after the liberation of the Old City during the Six-Day War, and passed away on Oct. 27, 1967, the day after Simchat Torah. He was eulogized by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi David Shelush, among others.
It is not uncommon to hear Mizrahi’s piyyutim without realizing that he is the payytan.Nagila Halleluyah (“We Will Rejoice, Halleluyah!”), often sung by North African and Middle Eastern Jews around the Shabbat table, is Mizrahi’s celebration of the return to Zion.
Another is L’Moledet Shuvi Roni (“Return to the Homeland and Sing”), a piyyut that has entered the Israeli songbook as a Zionist anthem and is especially popular among Magrebi communities. The melody is taken from Tunisian vocalist Hedi Jouni’s Lamouni Ligharou Meni, a song that still remains popular today on its own among North African and Israeli artists and orchestras. Mizrahi’s transformation of a popular Arab melody into a piyyut is characteristic of traditional Greater Sephardi musical practice which, aside from its deep connection to received tradition, is also notable for its receptivity.
Mizrahi wrote L’Moledet Shuvi Roni in Tunisia after fleeing Israel in 1929. A call to realize the Biblical-Zionist vision of ingathering the exiles, Mizrahi used the Biblical Song of Songs as his model for reimagining a new chapter in the romance between God and the Jewish people, but from the position of the Lover, i.e., God. Singing in the Divine first person, Mizrahi was convinced that the redemption had begun, and he imagined, from Tunisia, God calling His children home.
Enjoy this 2013 recording of the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra Ashdod performance of Mizrahi’s LaMoledet Shuvi Roni, together Jouni’s Lamouni Ligharou Meni, and featuring soloist Ofir ben Shitrit, for an evening crowd along Tel Aviv’s Mediterranean coast.
(Photo courtesy of Youtube)
Coda: On Mizrahi History Month
In 2014, the Government of Israel designated November 30th to be the annual Day of Commemoration for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who fled or were expelled from Arab and Islamic lands in the 20th century. It was official recognition that reflected a social-cultural shift in Israeli society in which “Mizrahi” history and culture increasingly spoke for the Israeli mainstream. In 2015 Erez Biton, an ASF Pomegranate Award honoree, received the Israel Prize for Hebrew Literature and Poetry in recognition of his unique “Arab-Jewish-Moroccan” voice. In 2016, then-Education Minister Naftali Bennett charged the prize-winning poet with leading The Biton Committee and assessing the manner in which Mizrahi heritage is taught (or isn’t taught) in Israeli schools. In January, 2018, the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra Ashdod was recognized as a national orchestra by Israel’s Ministry of Culture, and in short order the shift in socio-cultural winds reached America’s shores, as the month of November emerged as Mizrahi History Month in the United States.
The term “Mizrahi” is, of course, an Israeli invention, a blue-and-white term meaning “Easterner” that somehow is supposed to fit Jews from Morocco to Afghanistan. Considered geographically, the name is clearly absurd. For instance, Morocco sits on the Northwestern corner of Africa while the “Western” country of Poland lies to the east. Understood as a cultural signifier, the term also tends to say both too little and too much. Weren’t the English-speaking Baghdadi Jews who lived in the Far East during the first half of the 20th c. as British subjects, from Bombay to Shanghai, to some degree Westernized? In what meaningful sense can these Baghdadi Jews be considered to belong to the same cultural community as Jews from rural Yemen around the same time? Does the term “Mizrahi” simply refer to everything that is not Ashkenazi?
Whatever aspect of Mizrahi history that educators, activists, and Jewish institutions choose to highlight and explore, it is essential to recall that for those involved, their history was primarily Jewish. This is, for instance, the fundamental level of experience that linked the Baghdadi Jews of Shanghai to the Jews of rural Yemen during the first half of the 20th c. Only secondarily, and accidentally, was their history Iraqi, Chinese, or Yemenite.
On the most basic level, Mizrahi History Month is a welcome opportunity to expand the boundaries of Jewish identity and to enrich Jews from all backgrounds via the abundance of Jewish history and culture from across North Africa and the Middle East. There is, however, no good reason to limit this activity to the month of November.
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Rav Haim David HaLevi: An Underappreciated Sephardic Gadol
By Rabbi Haim Jachter, Jewish Link of New Jersey
Hakham Rav Haim David HaLevi (1924-1998) was a prodigious scholar and original thinker who served as the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and composed texts that appealed to both religious and academic scholars, as well as the general public. However, “[m]ention the name of Rav Haim David HaLevi to even knowledgeable Sephardic Jews and many will say they never heard of him!” Rabbi Haim Jachter introduces us to a 20th century Sephardi luminary whose impact was immense, but often overlooked: “Rav HaLevi is regarded as the first posek of note to formally and officially declare that smoking is forbidden according to the Halacha… Rav HaLevi set the mold, and by the 2000s nearly every rabbi of major stature has declared smoking to be forbidden.”
The Grandees: The Story of America’s Sephardic Elite
By Stephen Birmingham
The controversial classic purporting to provide insight into how “the Sephardic Jews began a tradition of wealth, pride, and exclusiveness that continues to this day. Stephen Birmingham sheds light on this segment of Jewish society who viewed other Jews as peasants and ardently shunned all publicity. It is the story of over three centuries of power and achievement, scandal and folly, elegant lifestyles, and sometimes flamboyant personalities – a story only Stephen Birmingham could tell with characteristic spellbinding skill.”
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Upcoming Events or Opportunities
Our Friends at Magen David Sephardic Congregation present:
The Screening of the Film
“MISH – MISH EFFENDI”
“Yom Haplitim honors the 850,000 Jewish refugees who were forced to leave Aral countries and Iran. Following the film, a panel of Jews from Arab and Moslem lands will speak about their own experiences, fleeing the countries of their birth.
In a basement near Paris, Egyptian animated films were found. The films were created by the Arab world pioneers in animated films, the Frenkel Brothers.
They were the creators of Mish-Mish Effendi, the Mickey Mouse of the entire region. Their works disappeared from Egyptian scenes when the state of Israel was created. The film reveals the forgotten era- an Arab- Jewish age when the two communities could create things together. Not only has this history disappeared, it has been erased from pages of history.”
Monday, 2 December at 7:00PM
@Magen David Sephardic Congregation
(11215 Woodglen Drive, Rockville, MD 20852)
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: $5
Please RSVP in advance.
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The World Jewish Congress – North America, American Sephardi Federation, the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations, Israel’s Consulate General at New York, and the Moise Safra Center present:
Remembering The Forgotten Jewish Refugees: The Next Generation
A commemoration of the mass exodus and expulsion of Jews from Arab and Islamic lands in the 20th century and its impact on present-day antisemitism. The event will feature:
Amb. Jonathan Miller (Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations)
Deputy CG Tsach Saar (Consulate General of Israel at New York)
Justice of NYS Supreme Court, Hon. Mojgan Cohanim Lancman
Activist, attorney, and author Adela Cojab Moadeb
Greater Sephardi Young Leaders: Abraham Hamra, Rabbi Isaac Choua, & Sara Aharon
ASF Sephardi House College Fellows: Nora Monasheri (Binghamton University), Rochelle Dweck (Syracuse University), Tehila Soleimani (Fashion Institute of Technology), & Yael Canaan (Carnegie Mellon University)
Yemenite-Israeli Music by Hila Yamini
Tuesday, 3 December at 6:00PM
@The Moise Safra Center (130 E 82nd St)
Sign-up Now!
Sephardic refreshments will be served
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The Museum of the Bible presents:
The Afghan Liturgical Quire Speaker Series – Jewish History in Afghanistan
Join us to learn more about Afghanistan’s ancient Jewish community and its heritage and customs. Nestled on the Silk Roads, the Jews of Afghanistan lived in this mountainous land for as many as 2,700 years. Throughout its history, this small community’s livelihood was based on long-distance trade. Unusual domestic patterns developed to allow for long periods of time when men were away and women maintained households on their own. Influenced by the many peoples who surrounded them, Afghan Jews preserved their own distinct traditions and way of life.
This discussion will be led by ASF Board Member Osnat Gad, an Afghan Jewish community leader who has worked to preserve Jewish holy sites in Kabul and Herat, Dr. Sara Koplik, author of A Political and Economic History of the Jews of Afghanistan, and Jason Guberman, Executive Director of the American Sephardi Federation.
Sunday, 12 January at 3:30PM
Sign-up in-person!
Tickets: $24.99-$29.99
Sign-up on Zoom!
Tickets: $4.99-$9.99
These lectures will be held at the museum and on Zoom. Tickets for the event include general admission to the museum for those who want to see the Afghan Liturgical Quire on exhibit.