In 1930, when he was just 14 years old, Gavriel Avraham Shrem left his parents and brother in Egypt and moved to the rapidly growing Syrian-Aleppan Jewish community in the United States. After spending a few years with his extended family in Georgia, Shrem married and moved to east Brooklyn, in the heart of the buzzing Syrian scene across the sea.
Shrem’s unique musical talents quickly earned him the right to serve as the chief chazzan at some of the most central and well-known Syrian shuls in the city: at Magen David and then Bnei Yosef. For the next few decades, Shren also worked to document, preserve, and teach the Aleppan tradition of piyyut or religious poetry to scholars and the community’s younger generation. This would ultimately result in the “Beit Yosef and Ohel Avraham” siddur.
Song and Praise, In Eretz Yisrael and in the Diaspora
The pride of members of the Aleppan community in their piyyutim and those who make them – and their desire to fight their gradual disappearance from memory – led Shrem and other people to initiate the production of an entire song book in the early 1960s, with a complete Syrian-New York appeal. However, in order to not break with those Aleppans living in Israel, as well as to enjoy the glow of the name of Jerusalem, it was decided that the book, Shir Ushvacha Hallel Vezimra, would be published in 1964 as part of a cross-continental collaboration: the publisher mentioned on the cover was the “distribution company of the kehillah kedoshah Magen David, New York, America,” but the printer was Salah Yaakov Mansour, who printed his books “in the holy city of Jerusalem.”
Thus, perhaps due to the good and healthy spirit of the country, the song book – which was devoted to the paytanim Rafael Antebi Tabbush and Rabbi Moshe Ashkar – included not only clearly religious songs but also a number of songs planted in the land of the Land of Israel and sown by the Zionist movement: “Artza Alinu” [We Ascended to the Land],
“Se’u Tziyona Nes Vedegel” [Carry to Zion a Symbol and Flag], as well as Mi Sheberach prayers for both the soldiers of the IDF and the State of Israel. Alongside them, as piyyut number 299, was the full, original song of Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem.
The song book was received joy and excitement by the community, and ended up being sold in large numbers in both New York and beyond. This may be why Shrem decided the next step being a complete Aleppan siddur, which would complement his own personal communal and literary project.
In 1974, that plan became a reality, with the first edition of the Beit Yosef VeOhel Avraham siddur appearing on the shelves. It bore the names of Avraham Shrem, the editor’s father, and Yosef Seth Hacohen, the father of the patron who funded its printing. As before, the new siddur was also published by the Aleppian Publication Society, but was once again printed under the direction of Salah Mansour, whose name and professional reputation reached New York.
This time, Jerusalem gave the siddur not only its name, but also a new piyyut which was starting to make its way into the shuls: Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, Jerusalem of Gold, Naomi Shemer’s immortal celebration of the Holy City and the victory of the Six Day War, which captured the hearts of Jews around the world – some even wanted to make it Israel’s national anthem instead of Hatikvah. Yet this siddur also included the full, unique version of the official Hatikvah, nicely reflecting the siddur’s partnership between Israel and New York.
Originally published on JFeed.com
