Chaim Nahum

Chaim Nahum Effendi (also Chaim Nachum, Ottoman حاييم ناحوم, Hebrew חיים נחום; * 1873 in Manisa, Ottoman Empire, † November 13, 1960 in Cairo, Egypt ) was a chief rabbi in the Ottoman Empire and Great Rabbi of Egypt and Sudan.

Life

Chaim Nahum was situated in the Turkish Manisa near Smyrna, born into a Sephardic Jewish family influenced during the Ottoman Empire. To ensure a traditional religious education, Chaim Nahum was sent by his parents to Tiberias, where he attended a yeshiva. His studies completed Nahum at the Sorbonne and the French rabbinical seminary in Paris, where he was ordained in 1897 as a rabbi, his studies continued Nahum then after his return from France at the University of Istanbul continued.

Chief Rabbi Nahum was an expert in the fields of Islamic history and Semitic languages ​​, has also taught in professional Jewish history and law at the Rabbinical College in Istanbul. In his tenure as Chief Rabbi Nahum in the Ottoman Empire undertook in 1908 a trip to Ethiopia and visited the Beta Israel. In addition, he had been state serve as advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Pasha during the contract negotiations of Lausanne active. Its state- relevant activities continued Nahum also on behalf of the king of Egypt continues, for example, as a senator.

In 1923, Rabbi Nahum was invited by Chief Rabbi Moise Cattaoui Pasha, to be his successor, which covered the line of the Jewish community in Egypt and Sudan. As of 1924, Nahum lived in the Kingdom of Egypt and was promoted on March 2, 1925 Chief Rabbi of Egypt and Sudan. There he received the Egyptian nationality in 1929. As Chief Rabbi Chaim Nahum is trying to establish the Learned Society for the Study of historical Judaism in Egypt again, which he succeeded in 1944, and became its director. For the Egyptian king, he was a senator in the government service and also as a scientist. From the mid-1940s his eyesight deteriorated, yet remained Chief Rabbi Nahum his service faithful, even when he completely lost his sight at the age of 78 years. He was also the time of the rise of expulsion of Jews from Arab and Islamic countries that came up again by the Palestine war, a stop for the Jews in Egypt. For his government, relevant and scientific work him the honorary title Efendi has been awarded as the Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire.

Grand Rabbi Chaim Nahum died on 13 November 1960 at the age of 88 years of life in Cairo. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the district Bassatin, which is occupied by poverty fugitives and now neglected.