"I Shall Sing unto the LORD as Long as I Live": Jewish and Islamic Traditions in the Cantorial Art-Form of the Prominent Cantor Mosheh Ḥabushah

Ḥabushah is unquestionably the most important Arab-Jewish cantor and musician alive today. He is admired by all Jews hailing from Muslim countries and by many music connoisseurs in the Arabo-Islamic world.

Born in 1961, in Jerusalem to Baghdadi parents, he made his first steps into the cantorial sphere when he was only thirteen. Four years later, Ḥabushah became the most loved cantor of the eminent Rabbi ‘Ovadyah Yosef (1920, Baghdad – 2013, Jerusalem) and his worldwide followers. Ḥabushah is an autodidact. He is a gifted vocalist, a virtuoso instrumentalist with extraordinary knowledge of the entire cantorial repertoire of Jews of Muslim countries, and of the classical gamut of Arabic and Turkish/Ottoman music. Committed to his Judaeo-Arabic tradition, and particularly to his Iraqi heritage, he is active in passing on its legacy and in communicating with Arab-Muslims through music. This paper meets Ḥabushah at the peak of his career. Drawing on both lengthy interviews conducted with him since 2014, and his enormous cantorial repertoire, it explores his art-form and its Jewish and Islamic features, in the wider contexts of both the Baghdadi cantorial legacy and Israel’s socio-cultural reality. The paper suggests that Ḥabushah’s fame stems from his rare artistic talent and his unique Judaeo-Arabic identity and life style. Each of these elements enable him to authentically preserve his predecessors’ legacy, to add some innovative elements that are true to its spirit, and thus to evoke in his audiences deep emotions of longing for and belonging to their Judaeo-Arabic culture.