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 1914 - 2006 (91 years)
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| Name |
Abraham Lopes Cardozo |
| Prefix |
Cantor |
| Born |
27 Sep 1914 |
Amsterdam, , Noord-Holland, NLD  [2, 3] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
21 Feb 2006 |
New York, New York (Manhattan), NY |
| Person ID |
I2055 |
aojd |
| Last Modified |
11 Nov 2011 |
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| Notes |
- Abraham Cardozo, Sephardic Cantor, Dies at 91
By ARI L. GOLDMAN
Published: February 23, 2006
The Rev. Abraham Lopes Cardozo, the longtime cantor of a historic Manhattan synagogue and a major force in recovering and preserving the liturgical music of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, died on Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 91.
Picture: Courtesy of the Cardozo Family, Abraham Lopes Cardozo in 1946.
Mr. Cardozo had been in failing health since fracturing a hip last year, said his son-in-law Sid Tenenbaum.
Mr. Cardozo was associated with Congregation Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, for 60 years. He served as cantor from 1946 to 1984 and was cantor emeritus after retiring.
The congregation, now at Central Park West and 70th Street, was founded in 1654 in Lower Manhattan by the first Jewish settlers in North America.
Mr. Cardozo was born in Amsterdam in 1914 to a rabbinical family that traced its origins to the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century, when the Jews were expelled. His great-grandfather was the Sephardic chief rabbi of Amsterdam and his father was the leader of the boys choir of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam.
Mr. Cardozo earned a degree as a Hebrew teacher at the Ets Haim Seminary in Amsterdam at 18. For most of his life he used the honorific "the reverend," a term now associated with Christian ministers but once popular with members of the Jewish clergy.
In 1939, he became a teacher and cantor in Dutch Guiana, now Surinam. Soon after he left Amsterdam, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, killing tens of thousands of Jews, including Mr. Cardozo's parents and his siblings.
Mr. Cardozo moved to New York in 1946 to join the staff of Congregation Shearith Israel. At his funeral at the synagogue yesterday, Rabbi Marc Angel, the senior rabbi of the congregation, called him "an ember that survived the fire" of the Holocaust.
"Reverend Cardozo was not only the voice of our congregation in prayer but the voice of a community destroyed, the Jewish community of prewar Amsterdam," Rabbi Angel said.
Mr. Cardozo published several books of liturgical music, including "Music for the Sephardim" and "Sephardic Songs of Praise." The Hebrew University of Jerusalem recently released a CD of his music called "The Western Sephardi Liturgical Tradition as Sung by Abraham Lopes Cardozo."
Mr. Cardozo is survived by his wife of 55 years, Irma Robles Lopes Cardozo; two daughters, Deborah Smith of Monsey, N.Y., and Judith Cardozo-Tenenbaum of Jerusalem; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
He first returned to Amsterdam in 1975 to participate in the 300th anniversary celebration of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, where he had begun his career. In 2000, he was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work in preserving Dutch Jewish culture. [4]
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| Sources |
- [S285] .
- [S49] ABRAHAM CARDOZO, SEPHARDIC CANTOR, DIES AT 91 BY ARI L. GOLDMAN PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 23, 2006 (Reliability: 3).
- [S279] GUIDE TO THE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM AND IRMA LOPES CARDOZO 1934 - 2003 (Reliability: 3).
- [S76] FAMILY GROUP SHEET #2 (Reliability: 3).
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