Eliyahu Hazan. Sepher Naveh Shalom [customs and ceremonies of the Alexandria community]

(EGYPT).

Farah Haim Mizrahi

Alexandria

1893

First Edition. Title printed in red and black. Additional title-page in Italian. Hebrew text, with passages in Judeo-Arabic and Italian.

Ya’ari, Alexandria 19.

Rabbi Elijah Bekhor ben Raphael Joseph Hazzan (1845-1908) was born in Istanbul and moved to Jerusalem at the age of ten with his grandfather, Rabbi Hayyim David ben Joseph Raphael Ḥazzan. From the 1860’s, he fulfilled public roles in the Sephardi congregations of Jerusalem, and in 1870 he visited England, France, and Italy, meeting with Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron de Rothschild. Two years later he went to Algeria and Tunisia as a and was profoundly impressed by the impact of modern French civilization on Jews there, particularly the emancipated Algerian Jews. He gave voice to his thoughts on modernity and emancipation in his important philosophical dialogue Zikhron Yerusalayim (Livorno, 1874). In 1875, he accepted the chief rabbinate of Tripoli and during his tenure restructured the city’s communal life. In 1888 he moved to Alexandria, where he remained for the rest of his life. See https://www.geni.com/people/Eliyahu-ben-Raphael-Joseph-%E1%B8%A4azzan-Chief-Rabbi-of-Alexandria/6000000022483400181.