In Memory of Chalons Sebban (Carlos Seban), A”H, a proud Moroccan Sephardi born at Melilla and raised by his ‘abuela’ (a loving grandmother who adored him and spoiled him in Spanish and Haketia), survivor of the Vichy “labor camp” at Bedeau, Algeria, decorated veteran of WWII who fought in the famous battles at Monte Cassino, Garigliano, the Abruzzi, and in the Rhine and Danube Campaign, and lover of life with a keen culinary sense, who specialized in ‘petite friture’ (small fry), camemberts ‘à point’ (just so), and splendid recipes for ‘al dente’ pasta, way before it became ‘a thing’. His family always hosted the Pesah Mimouna and Carlos couldn’t wait to get a baguette and a camembert, which he loved to share with the more adventurous members of the family. He passed surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and close family friends. Until the very end, his wife Lucienne, herself suffering of mild Alzheimer’s, held his hand and assured him of her indefectible love.
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is a continuing series of essays from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought that is delivered to your inbox traditionally on the second Monday of every month.
For the month of August, Sephardi Ideas Monthly shines the spotlight on Jacques Muyal, the Moroccan-Jewish music enthusiast, “who is one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in the world of jazz.” We’ll explore Muyal’s rich life and career with Hisham Aidi’s 2017 essay, “Tangier’s Jazzmen — and their phantom producer.”
Hisham Aidi is a scholar of cultural globalization who teaches at Columbia University. His 2014 book, Rebel Music, is a pioneering study of the connection between music and political activism among Muslim youth around the world, but he casts a wide net, and Rebel Music also includes some fascinating excursions into Moroccan Jewish music and musicians and the ways they fit into a larger Mediterranean social-cultural tapestry. “Tangier’s Jazzmen” extends the investigations that Aidi began in Rebel Music.
Professor Hisham Aidi
(Photo courtesy of UptownBerber/Twitter)
“Tangier’s Jazzmen - and their Afro Spanish Jewish Moroccan Producer”
Aidi opens “Tangier’s Jazzmen” by showing various stations along Muyal’s (b. 1940) remarkably varied career:
[Muyal] rode on Tito Puente’s float during the Puerto Rican Day Parade of 1969, when the mambo king was given a key to the city by Mayor John Lindsay. He was close to Oscar Peterson and Max Roach, he was pall-bearer at Dizzy Gillespie’s funeral. He was part of a team of engineers that designed the technical Oscar-winning Kudelski-Nagra IV recorder, used in film productions. He designed Oris’s jazz-inspired luxury watches honoring the likes of John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Dexter Gordon. And he produced a slew of memorable jazz records.
So how did a Moroccan Jew end-up making such an impression on the world of jazz? In Aidi’s telling, Muyal’s story is bound up with that of Tangier, the northern Moroccan city that became a Spanish-speaking international territory in 1923. Muyal grew-up:
during the International Zone’s glory years, when Tangier was a post-war boomtown, ruled by a committee of eight western powers, its frail legal system, loose tax and currency laws drawing traders and financiers – and writers and artists of all kinds.
Muyal fell in love with jazz in early 1955 listening to Duke Ellington on Voice of America radio, and from there it was a matter of good fortune, “[W]hen the State Department launched its jazz diplomacy program in 1956, one of the regular stops for the ‘jambassadors’ was Tangier.”
Living in the heart of Tangier’s cultural crossroads, Muyal was soon hired to translate radio programs into Spanish, introduce live events, and publish reviews. He also became a kind of cultural tour guide to black American musicians who came to Tangier looking to cultivate a musical identity connected to Islamic spirituality and the African continent. One of those musicians was Randy Weston, a seven-foot tall piano virtuoso who arrived on a State Department tour, settled in Tangier for a number of years, and became the father of Gnawa-jazz, ultimately returning to spread the gospel from his Brooklyn home. In time, Tangier assumed a central place in the imagination of American Jazz musicians and, as Aidi writes, “[I]t’s fair to say that the city would not have gained such a prominent place in the jazz world were it not for the half-century partnership between Muyal and… Weston.”
From his rich, cosmopolitan beginnings in Tangier, Muyal developed a flourishing career in jazz, often travelling to North America even as he set-up shop at Geneva. He also charmed various cultural figures along the way, with the poet, Ted Jonas, calling Muyal an, “afrospanishjewishmoroccan music/hipster,” while, as Aidi humorously writes, the legendary pianist Bud Powell was left slightly confused, “‘So Jack, you’re from Tangier right? So does that make you a Moor? You’re sure you’re not a Moor?’”
Muyal’s remarkable life and love affair with jazz was portrayed in a 2017, Swiss television-documentary, Jazz: The Only Way of Life, while his lifelong friendship with Dizzy Gillespie was recently on display in Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, when Muyal put together a ninety-minute film of previously unreleased home footage with the jazz great.
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is very pleased to introduce our readers to the fascinating Moroccan-Jewish figure of Jacques Muyal with Hisham Aidi’s sympathetic and stimulating portrait, rich in cultural reverberations, “Tangier’s Jazzmen — and their phantom producer.”
The featured sage for the month of August is Hakham Yosef Rubin Elkabelah.
Born and raised in Tripoli, Libya, Yosef Rubin Elkabelah (1877-1952) lost his father at age three. His mother, Aziza, made sure to raise her son among the local sages, and her efforts bore fruit, as Yosef was ordained a rabbi at age 18. He served in Tripoli as a shochet (ritual slaughterer), mohel (ritual circumciser), teacher of Torah and Talmud, and cantor until the age of thirty-five. That’s when R’ Yosef moved to Malta to assume a new position. However, that move would initiate nearly two decades of challenges that included the loss of two children, exposure to the cholera epidemic, and forced immigration when R’ Yosef stood up to a corrupt physician. Along the way, R’ Yosef also became friends with Mustapha Kamel, the founder and leader of the modern Turkish republic subsequently known as Ataturk. R’ Yosef actually ran into Ataturk twice, with the second encounter securing the safety of the Jews of Izmir.
R’ Yosef served in various rabbinic positions in Malta and Libya for twenty-five years until he made Aliyah to Israel in 1949. He managed the move even after illness caused him to lose his vision. Once in Israel, R’ Yosef and his family settled in a transit camp and set up a Libyan communal synagogue in what is today part of North Tel Aviv.
After R’ Yosef Rubin Elkabelah passed away in 1952, a Kollel (an advanced school of Talmudic study) was opened in his name on Moshav Dalton. A book of R’ Yosef’s sermons and legal rulings that he originally published in 1928 at Tripoli, Yosef Hen, was reissued in Israel by the Ganzi Raphael Institute.
In the passage below from Yosef Hen, Hacham Yosef Rubin Elkabelah explains why the virtue of humility enables one to excel both as a scholar and teacher:
Why is Halacha ruled according to the House of Hillel? Because they have the virtue of humility." One must question the words of those [sages] of blessed memory: If the House of Hillel have the virtue of humility, is this a reason to rule Halacha according to them, even if it is not according to their ruling? To resolve this, let us begin with a great principle enunciated by our Sages, concerning one who is humble: "When he studies a precept, his intention is to understand it according to Halacha, and therefore Halacha is ruled as he says.”
According to this, the verses in which Moses blessed the Tribe of Levi can be reconciled: " And of Levi he said: Let Your Thummim and Urim be with Your faithful one…They shall teach Your laws to Jacob and your instructions to Israel". At first glance, one would have to ask why Moses gave this blessing only to the Tribe of Levi. Aren't they all the tribes of G-d, having all received the Torah from Sinai and having all learned it directly from Moses? Why, then, did Moses accord the merit of reading the Torah, as well as its teaching, only to the Tribe of Levi?
Our interpretation, however, allows for this to be resolved, as follows: The Tribe of Levi have the virtue of humility. When the Land of Israel was divided among the tribes they did not take any inheritance, as is written in Scripture: "…the LORD is their inheritance" and they were very gladdened by this gift. This is why they are referred to by the term 'faithful', as written in Scripture: 'with Your faithful one', and this is what is meant by 'the intention to understand according to Halacha' as mentioned concerning the House of Hillel, who had the virtue of humility. When they would study with students, they would attend to them until they understood; they never became angry, for such was their virtue.
Anti-Semitism is once again on the rise, just 75 years after the Holocaust. This irrational hatred of Jews and the world’s only Jewish State harms both innocent victims and perpetrators infected by bigotry. The resurgence of anti-Semitism poses a challenge to all people of conscience:
How can we work together to stop anti-Semitism?
This contest is crowd-sourcing new solutions to help end “the world’s oldest hatred.” The contest is sponsored by the CombatAntiSemitism.org Coalition.
People of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities are encouraged to participate by creatively addressing one of the categories below:
Submit a plan for a social venture to help stop anti-Semitism. The award prize will be a seed investment to jump-start your social start-up. More About This Award
Lazarus was a Latina Jew whose poem “The New Colossus” transformed the meaning of the Statue of Liberty. Revive her example to tackle anti-Semitism. More About This Award
Write an essay or action plan proposing how the heroic example of Jewish leaders can educate and inspire people to stand up against anti-Semitism. More About This Award
Produce a video or essay exploring Israel’s centrality to Jewish identity and human progress – and why celebrating its existence is moral and vital. More About This Award
Round 1 Deadline: 1 December 2019 Future Rounds Coming Soon
Judging Panel of entrepreneurs and leaders, including: Gil Canaani (Hearst Ventures), Rotem Eldar (Ofek Ventures), Barak Rabinowitz (F2 Venture Capital), and Sima Vaknin-Gil (former Director-General of Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry)
Award presentations by Natan Sharansky & other VIPs
Outstanding entries will be publicized to enhance understanding and inspire activism Contest Rules– Contest Judges – FAQ – Contact
Specific contest awards co-sponsored by Coalition Members, including:
Anne, A Musical tells the story of Anne Frank through the lyrics and music of Algerian-French Sephardi composer Jean Pierre-Hadida. David Serero is producing, directing, and staring (as Otto Frank) in this English language première adaptation of the highly successful and well-reviewed original French production, which has been touring for 10 years and was recognized by the Anne Frank Museum at Amsterdam. At the crossroads of musical theater, opera, and oratorio, the twelve artists onstage will bring to life Ms. Frank's world in hiding. This musical piece is educative, emotional, and showcases the universal legacy of one of the most important Jewish figures of the past century.
David Serero (Otto Frank), Kristyn Vario (Anne Frank), SaraKate Coyne (Margot), Lisa Monde (Edith Frank), Wendell Hester (Peter), Jacob Waid (Herman Van Pels), Mackenzie Tank (Augusta Van Pels), Erik Contzius (Fritz Pfeifer), Jordan Flippo (Miep), Alex Schecter (Slammer and U/S), Emily Samuelson (Ensemble and U/S).
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York City
About the Photographer
In addition to Morocco, Joan Roth traveled to Ethiopia before Operation Moses and again afterwards, Yemen, Bukhara, India, Israel, and photographed extensively in the United States. Her photographs of Jewish women are published, exhibited, and collected by museums and collectors worldwide. Some of Joan’s photographs are published in the book: Jewish Women: A world of Tradition and Change (Jolen Press, 1995).
Gloria Steinem has written the following appreciation: “Joan Roth has looked at the Jewish world as if women mattered, and therefore as if everyone mattered. Across all the boundaries of geography and language, there is not only a common world of belief, but a common world of women. We see into its intimacy through her eyes.” Roth richly depicts the personal and historical dimensions of these women as they preserve and adapt centuries-old traditions amid varied cultural surroundings. The effect, in the words of Rocky Mountain art critic Mary Voltz Chandler, “is like opening a jewelry box filled with so many secrets women know but never told each other.”
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