Elfassy, Raphael (1939-2019)

Raphael Elfassy was born on November 4, 1939 in Rabbat, Morocco. Like many children in the Moroccan community, he developed a precise and meticulous knowledge of sacred texts. He was an active member of the Eclaireurs Israélites (E.I.), a Jewish scouting group.

When his family emigrated to Israel in 1956, he had the courage to remain in France, alone and destitute, with the strong determination to pursue his studies. Thanks to the support and protection of a wise and clear-minded principal, he passed his baccalaureate at the Lycée Saint Louis in Paris. At the same time, he studied with Manitou at Orsay.

Passionate about music, Raphael’s beautiful tenor voice was noticed at liturgical services. He went on to study musicology, and at the Direction de l’Enfance et de la Jeunesse (DEEJ) on rue Poissonnière in Paris, created the first Jewish music choir in a reborn community.

At the Montevideo synagogue with Rabbi Schwartz, he created the first Talmud Torah correspondence course, and taught Hebrew at the Lycée Lakanal. A demanding pedagogue, he developed astonishingly effective teaching methods of his own.

As a visiting prison chaplain for several years, he has retained a strong sense of human emotion.

A passion for music

Choir director for decades in numerous synagogues (Neuilly, Montevideo, Saint Lazare, Chasseloup), Raphael Elfassy – known as Raphy – has made every official celebration and, for every family, every wedding or bar mitzvah, an unforgettable musical and emotional memory.

Anxious to make the Jewish soul and harmonic sensibility understood by as many people as possible, he founded the Guilgal Artistic Association in 1971 with a small but committed team, which has drawn masses of young Jews – and non-Jews – to Israel’s dance classes and choir. At the same time, in France and Israel, ably assisted by Bernadette Leclair, née Weisz, he worked in constant collaboration with numerous musical personalities and choreographers.

During her lifetime, the great harpist Lili Laskine enjoyed accompanying him in some of his performances. The Guilgal amateur choir represented France at the Zimria ^[1]Gathering of Jewish choirs and choruses from around the world in 1973, and again in Israel in 1976. He was particularly proud of this!

With the creation of the Ensemble De Musique Hébraïque De Paris in 1990, Raphael turned professional. In this ensemble, he brought together singers and instrumentalists from some of the country’s leading orchestras: Radio France, the Opéra, the Orchestre Philarmonique and the Orchestre National de France. Among them are many non-Jewish soloists, who discovered the great pieces of Jewish music on this occasion.

With this group, he gave numerous concerts, notably at the Festival d’Art Sacré de Paris, and for several consecutive years at the Festival d’Art Sacré du Couserans in St Girons.

From 1976 to 1980, he recorded a four-disc collection of Israeli folklore (Israël : Chants et danses n°1, 2, 3 & 4), followed in 1984 by Poésie, musique et chant d’Israël, poems read by Giani Esposito. In 1992, he published another series of 3 CDs (Le mariage juif, Le calendrier juif and Le mariage juif (2) – Tradition Sépharade Turque, this last CD being produced at the request of the officials of the Great Synagogue of Istanbul).

Raphael Elfassy was also a brilliant choreographer. Using his imagination, he successfully staged several dance shows illustrating the history of the Jewish people.

An uncompromising pedagogue, for almost thirty years he continuously formed an “artistic club” within the Saint-Leu-la-Forêt community in the Val d’Oise. There, he led an amateur choir and a children’s orchestra, into which he infused the spirit of Jewish musical culture.
A hard-working, creative and accomplished artist, Raphael Elfassy left an indelible mark on all those, young and old, who crossed his path. Through the radiance of liturgy, music and dance, he stubbornly pursued a single goal: to give Jewish culture its place in any family or community education system.
With his death on September 30, 2019, the Jewish world has lost one of its great artists and pedagogues.