Musta'arabim

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Musta'arabi Jews (Arabic, "Arabizers") are a group of Arabic-speaking Jews who lived in the Middle Eastern lands prior to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Following the expulsion, Spanish-Jewish exiles moved into the Middle East and settled amongst their Arabic-speaking, or Judaeo-Arabic-speaking, co-religionists. In many countries, the Sephardi immigrants and the older established Jewish communities maintained separate synagogues and separate religious rituals, but often had a common Chief Rabbinate, and the general tendency was for both the communities and their customs to assimilate. This pattern was found in most Arabic-speaking countries: a typical example is Syria, described in more detail in the rest of this article. Another is Tunisia, where there was a strong social distinction between Tuansa (native) and L'grana (Livornese) Jews.

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[edit] Old Aleppo Ritual

The Aleppo Musta'arabim had a distinct prayer book (1527, published in Venice) and distinct way of worship. This prayer book is called Mahzor Aram Soba.

The following are some of the differences that stand out in the Aram Soba Mahzor.

  • The order of the Psalms in the morning service is different.
  • The following prayers are worded differently (while still preserving the same message of the prayer): Baruch She’Amar, Kaddish, Kedusha, certain blessings of the Amidah, Tachanun, and the Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals).
  • The Kaddish varies from the that of the Ashkenazic rite in that there are “messianic references in the second verse”.
  • Psalm 8 was recited each night before the Evening Service, a practice no longer in place anywhere else.
  • There was a tradition to recite 72 different verses from the Bible immediately after the Amidah of the Morning Services.
  • There is a tradition, still followed by many Syrian Jews, called Alpha-Beta, which consists of reciting Psalm 119-134 before the Evening Services on Motzaei Shabbat: this also appears in the prayer book of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
  • There was also an important tradition pertaining to the month of Elul, the month of repentance before the Days of Judgment. At dawn of Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, special Selichot prayers were recited. There were different selichot prayers, piyyutim, and Biblical verses to be recited for each week of that month. Syrian Jews, like other Sephardim, still recite Selihot during the entire month of Elul. However, the selichot recited by the Syrian Jews are standardized and do not vary from day to day as do the selichot of the Aram Soba Mahzor.

[edit] Influence of the Sephardic rite

After the immigration of Jews from Spain following the expulsion, a compromise liturgy evolved containing elements from the customs of both communities, but with the Sephardic element taking an ever larger share. One reason for this was the influence of the Shulchan Aruch, and of the Kabbalistic usages of Isaac Luria, both of which presupposed a Sephardic prayer text; for this reason a basically "Sephardic" type of text replaced many of the local Near and Middle Eastern rites over the course of the 16th to 19th centuries, subject to a few characteristic local customs retained in each country. (See Sephardic Judaism for more detail.)

In Syria, as in North African countries, there was no attempt to print a Siddur containing the actual usages of the community, as this would not generally be commercially viable. Major publishing centres, principally Livorno, and later Vienna, would produce standard "Sephardic" prayer books suitable for use in all communities, and particular communities such as the Syrians would order these in bulk, preserving any special usages by oral tradition. (For example, ִHacham Abraham Hamaoui of Aleppo commissioned a series of prayer-books from Livorno, which were printed in 1878: these were "pan-Sephardic" in character, with some notes referring to "minhag Aram Soba".)

As details of the oral tradition faded from memory, the liturgy in use came still nearer to the "Livorno" standard. Nevertheless a distinction persisted between the "Sephardic" rite (based on the Livorno siddurim) and the "Musta'arabi" rite (basically similar, but retaining some features derived from the older tradition).

In the early years of the twentieth century, the "Sephardic" rite was almost universal in Syria. The only exception (in Aleppo) was a "Musta'arabi" minyan at the Central Synagogue of Aleppo, but even their liturgy differed from the "Sephardic" in only a few details such as the order of the hymns on Rosh Hashanah. Some differences between the two main prayer books published in Aleppo in the early twentieth century may reflect Sephardi/Musta'arabi differences, but this is not certain: current Syrian rite prayer books are based on both books.

[edit] Use of Piyyut

The use of the Piyyut, which was very prominent on the holidays and Shabbat, was not limited to the Musta'arabim community, but occurred in most Jewish communities. The earliest piyyutim however, were “overwhelmingly [from] [Eretz Israel] or its neighbor Syria, [because] only there was the Hebrew language sufficiently cultivated that it could be managed with stylistic correctness, and only there could it be made to speak so expressively.” Originally, the word piyyut designated every type of sacred poetry, but as usage developed, the term came to designate only poems of hymn character. The piyyutim were usually composed by a talented rabbinic poet, and depending on the piyyut’s reception by the community determined whether it would pass the test of time. By looking at the composers of the piyyutim, one is able to see which family names were part of the Middle Eastern community, and which hachamim were prominent and well established. The composers of various piyyutim usually used acrostic form in order to hint out their identity in the piyyut itself. Since prayer books were limited at the time, many piyyutim have repeating stanzas that the congregation would respond to followed by the cantor’s recitations.

The additions of the piyyutim to the services were mostly used as an embellishment to the services and to make it more enjoyable to the congregation. As to how the origin of the piyyut’s implementation came about, there is a theory that this had to do with the fact that there were prayer restrictions on the Jews. Samau’al Ibn Yahya al-Maghribi, a Jewish convert to Islam in the twelfth century, wrote that the Persians prohibited the Jews from holding prayer services. “When the Jews saw that the Persians persisted in obstructing their prayer, they invented invocations into which they admixed passages from their prayers (the piyyut)…and set numerous tunes to them”. They would assemble at prayer time in order to read and chant the piyyutim. The difference between that and prayer is that the prayer is without melody and is read only by the person conducting the service, whereas in the recitation of the piyyut, the cantor is assisted by the congregation in chanting melodies. “When the Persians rebuked them for this, the Jews sometimes asserted that they were singing, and sometimes [mourning over their situations].” When the Muslims took over and allowed Jews dhimmi status, prayer became permissible unto the Jews, and the piyyut had become a commendable tradition for holidays and other joyous occasions. Approximately 30% of the Aram Soba Mahzor is composed of piyyutim.

Following the dominance of the Sephardic rite in Syria, most of these piyyutim were eliminated from the prayer book. Some of them survive as pizmonim, used extra-liturgically.

[edit] Today

The Musta'arabim have completely assimilated with the Sephardic Jews and are no longer a distinct entity. Certain families identify as "Sephardim" in the narrower sense, and are distinguished by their practice of lighting an extra candle on Hanukkah. (This is said to be in gratitude for their acceptance by the older community. It is not shared with Sephardim in other countries.)

According to Mr. Joey Mosseri, a Sephardic historian living in the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, the last time the Musta'arabi liturgy was officially used was during the 1930s, and then it completely ceased. Mr. Shelomo Salem Zafrani, living in Aleppo, held daily services in the Musta'arabi Jewish rite, until his departure to the Holy Land in the early 1930s. After that date, there is no known public usage of this liturgy even in Aleppo itself. Today, Syrian Jews do not live in Syria (with the exception of a few individuals living in Damascus) and do not distinguish between Musta'arabim and Sephardic Jews.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Prayer books

  • Maִhzor Aram Tsoba (fragment): Venice 1560
  • Bet El (seliִhot and morning service), Abraham ִHamwi: Livorno 1878 (repr. New York 1982)
  • Bet Din (Rosh Hashanah), Abraham ִHamwi: Livorno 1878 (repr. Jerusalem 1986)
  • Bet ha-Kapporet (Kippur), Abraham ִHamwi: Livorno 1879
  • Bet Simִhah (Sukkot), Abraham ִHamwi: Livorno 1879 (repr. Jerusalem 1970)
  • Bet ha-Beִhirah (Pesaִh), Abraham ִHamwi: Livorno 1880 (repr. Jerusalem 1985)
  • Seder Olat Tamid (minִhah and arbit only): Aleppo 1907
  • Olat ha-Shaִhar: Aleppo 1915

[edit] Other

  • Ades, Abraham, Derech Ere"tz: Bene Berak, 1990.
  • Betesh, David, The Aram Soba Mahzor: New York, 2006.