Very rare recording of Zaki Murad, a Hazan (cantor) and his famous singer/actress daughter Leila Murad singing El-Nora Halila, the Sephardi
piyyut which opens the concluding service of Yom Kippur.
Leila Murad ended her days in Egypt as a recluse, having converted to Islam. I wonder what her father Zaki would have made of that.
Wishing all readers observing the Day of Atonement Gmar Hatima Tova.
Didnt she only become muslim because of her marriage with an muslim?
ReplyDeleteAnd wasnt her carreer ruined after it came out that she met with family from Israel in France?
On the face of it yes, but it could also be a result of years of political intimidation. Her career was ruined after 1948 when false rumours spread that she had donated substantial funds to Israel.
ReplyDeleteShe apparently became a Muslim after she married her first husband who was a Muslim
ReplyDeleteBut she wasn't accused of giving money to Israel until after she won the contest over Um Khaltoum in 1953. Those accusations were found to be without merit. After that she was accused of meeting family who were Israelis.
What I find most intriguing with that family is that her brother Mounir's full name as it is published in Wikipedia has Assoulin as his last name.
Assoulin/e is a very distinctive Jewish Berber name from the Atlas mountains. What is it doing in Egypt? And why is it never associated with the father?
As far as I know, her father was from Iraq or descended from there
ReplyDeleteBut Patrick, did you see that Mounir's name is said to be Assoulin?
ReplyDeleteI think it means rocks or something like that in Berber language and points to a specific region in the Atlas mountains as the origins.
It is not impossible that the ancestors went to Iraq from the Maghreb and from there to Egypt.
Many people in Israel by that name and all -regardless of where they were born - trace their origins back to the Maghreb.
Unless of course the name exists elsewhere to mean something else.
Now why would the son take that name but not the father? This is a mystery.
Another famous Egyptian entertainer changed his religion to please the mob. Omar Sharif was originally a Christian --with a different name-- who became a Muslim apparently because of social-political pressure to conform.
ReplyDelete