Born in Iraq, Elijah Isaac Ḥazzan became rabbi and principal of the community school in the town of Ḥilla around 1885. He introduced the study of modern literary Arabic and modernized the school’s administration. In 1906 he left Ḥilla and went to Hong Kong to serve as rabbi and cantor of the Ohel Leah synagogue of the Iraqi Jewish community there. From then on he was known as Ḥazzan (i.e., cantor) rather than Shammash, the surname with which he was born. When the Ohel Rachel synagogue of the Iraqi Jewish community in Shanghai was completed in 1920, he was commissioned to serve there. …