By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
The final months of 2008 have been a season of change for Congregation Ezra Bessaroth. The Seward Park synagogue has recently gained a new hazzan, but is preparing to lose a rabbi, at least temporarily.
Salomon Cohen-Scali, head rabbi for the Sephardic synagogue, which currently boasts a membership of around 200 families, will depart for Jerusalem on a six-month sabbatical at the beginning of December.
While in Israel, Cohen-Scali said he intends to devote his time primarily to studying and teaching at different yeshivas and other institutions.
According to Ezra Bessaroth president Ruben Owen, the ability to take a six-month sabbatical once every seven years is built into Cohen-Scali’s contract.
“Rabbis need to get refreshed. They study the whole early part of their career. But they need to get new ideas from outside the community and this is a way to do that,” Owen said.
Of course, leaving one’s congregation for six months is not an easy thing for a rabbi — or his congregation. It means missing out on half a year’s worth of holidays and celebrations with his community, as well as turning over his responsibilities to other synagogue staff and lay congregation members.
However, Cohen-Scali does not seem to be letting these concerns weigh him down.
“I just wish it was longer,” he said of his upcoming sabbatical.
In August, the synagogue hired Yogev Nona to fill the hole left by departing hazzan Aryeh Greenberg, who has moved to New York. According to Owen, the search for a new hazzan took a full year with 20 candidates being considered for the position.
“He has a Sephardic background, so he’s familiar with our customs, and he also has a very strong voice,” Owen said of the synagogue’s reasons for selecting Nona over other applicants.
Nona comes to Seattle by way of Jerusalem, where he and his wife Rachel had been living for the past year and a half. He is originally from Rishon LeZion, on Israel’s central coast.
At just 25 years old, Nona, who spoke with JTNews through the aide of volunteer translator and Ezra Bessaroth member Dan Melber, considers his hiring by Ezra Bessaroth a huge step forward in his career.
“In Israel, there are a lot of hazzanim who have other jobs and who get opportunities to work for specific holidays. But if you are hired to come to the United States as an official hazzan for a synagogue, in Israeli terms, that means that you have actually risen in your level of professionalism. It’s a big step because there are only so many working opportunities,” he said.
Along with singing during Friday night and Saturday morning services, Nona will assist with Bar Mitzvah training, officiating weddings, and leading the congregation during holidays and other special occasions. He will also help to fill the void left during Cohen-Scali’s absence.
Both Nona and his wife are currently receiving private English instruction from members of Ezra Bessaroth who run an ESL school. In the meantime, Nona said, he’s coping with the language barrier as best he can. Fortunately, he noted, the only Bar Mitzvah student he’s worked with so far had a working knowledge of Hebrew.
Nona began his work at Ezra Bessaroth at the end of August. He said his biggest accomplishment thus far was learning all of the music that accompanies Ezra Bessaroth’s unique High Holiday services. The congregation adheres to a musical tradition brought over from the Greek isle of Rhodes, where the synagogue’s original congregants had their roots and with which Nona was unfamiliar prior to arriving in Seattle. He said he spent many hours listening to CDs made by hazzan emeritus Isac Azose in order to prepare.
“[I] got a lot of compliments for doing the job the way it should be done,” he said.
Nona said both he and his wife have so far enjoyed their brief time in Seattle and that he is excited to continue to learn more about his new community.