The Unfinished Search for an Early Professional Arabic Singing Star in the United States: Syrian-American, Jewish Singer - Moses Cohen

Moses E. Cohen. Photo property of the Sephardic Heritage Museum. New York, New York.

We do not take the publication of this biography lightly since much of the evidence remains unclear and our senses may have easily misled us. No singular piece of documentation provides a combined birthdate, address, and occupation as a singer or musician and contains the name Moses or Mousa Cohen. For years, historians, ethnomusicologists, and record collectors have attempted to find the Syrian Jewish singer Moses Cohen also known as Mousa Cohen. Every so often, one of Cohen’s Columbia Records or Victor Talking Machine Company releases is found by a record collector. Sometimes the buyer holds onto the discs, fails to locate even the slightest information about Cohen, then either holds onto or sells the record exhausted by the faint prospect of ever uncovering Cohen’s identity.

Moses Cohen and Naim Karacand E#3384 44904 "Ya Mannasha." Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. 
https://youtu.be/2odK2hJf9I8

Fact is, there were dozens of Moses Cohens in the United States between 1916 and 1922. Even if we guess that this Arabic-speaking Jew, like some of his Arabic-speaking Jewish peers, hailed from Aleppo, we are still left with a Moses A. Cohen born 16 February 1892 or 1893, another born 4 July 1892, and a third born in 1894. There was the so-called Spanish-speaking Moses Cohen born in Syria in 1878 who resided in Florida in 1920, but we could never find any indication that any of these guys was the Cohen we had long searched for. Then in 2021 re-issue record producer and researcher Ian Nagoski announced that Columbia Recording artist M. Elhahe and Moses Cohen were one and the same.  Was the same Elhahe a cipher, a clue, or an alias? Did this mean that the Moses Cohen who claimed to have a brother in Syria with the surname Elhade was most likely our guy?  Perhaps.

Moses Cohen's WWI Draft Card. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

We then remembered three clues mentioned by the leading scholar of Arab American music, Anne Rasmussen.  According to her research, the cover of her foundational work The Music of Arab America included a photograph of Russell Bunai and Amer Kadaj standing in front of Alamphon Records "on Atlantic Avenue."* Askew but visible in the shop window in the background was a poster for a concert starring Moses Cohen. This meant Cohen was still performing by at least 1947 because that is the year Amer and Sana Kadaj first came to the United States and settled in Brooklyn before moving on to Detroit. Consequently, we could eliminate any Moses Cohen who reportedly died before 1946. Secondly, Rasmussen reports that Russell Bunai recalled Moses Cohen could "neither write, nor read." This perplexed us because it raises questions about who handled the business side of Cohen's career? What if Cohen could not read or write Arabic, but could speak it? What if he could, however, read and write Hebrew and English? Thirdly, Rasmussen states that Russell Bunai remembered that Cohen was Jewish and Egyptian. We then set out to find any Moses Cohen with connection to Egypt. 

After years of searching, we located Moses E. Cohen, born in Aleppo, Syria 15 or 25 September 1879 or 1880 to Naomi Azar and Ezra Cohen.  In 1899, Mousa or Moses married Fahra and the couple had two children in Aleppo before moving to Alexandria, Egypt in 1906.  Since the 1850s, Syrian Jews left cities like Aleppo for various cities in Egypt including Cairo and Alexandria. Egypt emerged as important center for music and as a hub for Nahra-era musicians. The Cohens remained in Alexandria until 1909 when the family packed their belongings and sailed for New York. They joined groups of Syrian Jews who began to leave Aleppo for the United States. Upon their arrival in New York, the Cohens settled in Brooklyn where one of the city’s larger Syrian enclaves took shape. Two more children, Esther and Abe, were born in New York City in 1914 and 1921.

As we suspected, although born in Aleppo, Cohen told Census enumerators in 1920 that he could read and write in Hebrew. He listed Arabic and English as languages he could speak in 1930. There is no evidence he could read and write in Arabic, a fact Arabic speaking musicians, like Russell Bunai, would have surely noticed if Cohen was expected to read song lyrics in Arabic. 

Petition to Naturalize for Moses Cohen shows that although he immigrated from Egypt to the United States, he was actually born in Aleppo, Syria. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

Exactly how Moses Cohen found himself at Columbia Studios in 1916 and 1917 remains unclear. Alexander Maloof had already recorded two piano solos for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1913 and Rev. George Aziz, Walim Kamel, Nahum Simon, Mohamed ZainEldeen, and Naim Karacand cut sides for Columbia Gramophone Company by the time Cohen embarked on his first sessions under his own name in 1917. Most of Cohen’s musical output for Columbia were single-song-two sided selections that included “Ya Mnanasha-Pt. 1-2”, “El Ouzoubia-Pt. 1-2”, and “Waslak Wa Hagrak-Pt. 1-2”. Four years later in June and July 1921, Cohen similarly laid down two songs on one occasion and a single song during a second session for the Victor Talking Machine Company.  All these recordings included oud, violin, and or kanun accompaniment. Victor songs by Cohen included "Wana mali" and "Ma Hadi Zayeh Part 1&2."

Moses Cohen "Wana Mali-Part 1 (What's Wrong With Me)", Victor #73065-A. Courtesy of Popsike.  

Despite his music career, Moses Cohen never mentioned to census takers that he was anything but a grocery peddler or grocery salesman, but frankly even in his pioneering position as a one of the first Syrian American vocalists, music did not pay him enough to sustain his livelihood. Why bother listing anything but self-employed on any government documents if we’re talking about supplemental income?

Cohen traveled to Los Angeles to perform at a wedding. Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1924. Courtesy of Newspapers.com
 

After the release of Cohen’s Victor discs, he appeared in the mainstream pressed when he and Naim Karacand’s Orchestra performed at the Great Lebanon Cedar Society in Adams, Massachusetts, in 1921.  "A Night of Tarab" hosted by the Lawrence, Massachusetts Syrian Forum featured Toufic Moubaid, Naim Karacand, and Cohen in March of 1922. Two years later, Cohen travelled clear across the country to Los Angeles to sing as a soloist for the wedding of Amen Abdelnour and Dr. Assud Abdun-nur October 1924. The ceremonies were officiated by a young Rev. Antony Bashir. By 1928, Moses Cohen and Alexander Maloof supplied selections of Syrian folk songs to the crowd of eager listeners at the Saint Nicholas Lyceum for the annual dance in Brooklyn, New York. Packed to the rafters, some 700 people turned out to see these two veterans of Arab American music perform. Scores of these attendees came to hear for themselves live, the genius that Columbia, Victor and Maloof’s labels had been capturing for several years on shellac by this time.

Moses Cohen and Alexander Maloof performed at the Saint Nicholas Orthodox Lyceum in 1928; Brooklyn Times Union,  7 January 1928. Newspapers.com

This time Cohen teamed up with Naim Karacand's orchestra; North Adams Transcript, 16 December 1921. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

The 1929 Stock Market crash, the Romey lynchings in the same year, and the coming depression ravaged many Arab American communities across the United States; ironically, Cohen’s hafla performances received more press attention in the 1930s than any decade previous or since. In Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest (2020), Religious Studies scholar and historian, Edward V. Curtis IV, reminds us that some Syrian and Lebanese American grocers and businesses in cities like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, continued to do well for themselves even during the Great Depression. Performances and haflas featuring Cohen did equally as well. For instance, 400 people showed up to hear Moses Cohen during his return to Adams, Massachusetts, in April 1931 for the North Adams Lebanese Boys & Girls club concert. People came from Worcester, Pittsfield, Great Barrington, Troy, New York, and Barre, Vermont. In early 1934, Cohen led a fez-capped orchestra for the Arabian Night events hosted by the Mapleton Lodge of the Aleppian Society. Reports noted he sang in Syrian (Levantine) and Egyptian dialects. Within months, Cohen headlined at the Syrian-American League of Passaic in New Jersey, not far from where Alexander Maloof relocated, and for July 4^th, Cohen, Naim Karacand, Fathallah Abyad, and Mosa Kalooky joined forces to entertain members of the Syrian-American League of Passaic again. Much of the same ensemble, with Mosa Kalooky replaced by Mike Hamway, played for the listening pleasure of the Syrian Democratic Club of Paterson, New Jersey in the fall of 1934. One year later Naim Karacand, Mosa Kalooky, Fathallah Abyad, and Mousa Cohen opened the Syrian American League annual outing at Idlewild Park near Passaic, New Jersey. 

This time mentioned as "Moosa Cohen" during a performance, August 26, 1935. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

World War II draft cards document two different Moses Cohens born in Aleppo, Syria - one in 1892, the other in 1880. Only Moses E. Cohen had a connection to both Syria and Egypt, although neither listed musician or singer as their occupation. 

World War II draft card for Moses E. Cohen. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

Also by World War II, Moses Cohen saw a new wave of Arab American musicians begin to emerge; most of his time remained dedicated to working as a salesman and/or being self-employed. Several new labels, signifying new generations of Arab American musical self-determination, surfaced in the 1940s including George S. Gorayeb's Arabphon, Albert Rashid's Al-Chark, Farid Alam's Alamphon, Najeeba Morad's Morad Records, and Tony Abdelahad's Abdelahad records. Although one of the earliest Arab American vocalists and once a Columbia and Victor recording artist, Cohen slowed down, but continued to play the regular circuit of gigs with some of his old friends and colleagues. In October 1947, the Syrian American Democratic Club of New Jersey, Inc. held its rally for mayoral candidate Michael DeVita; a capacity crowd filled Entre Nous Hall and an estimated 400 people had to be turned away from the event. There, Moses Cohen and his old friends Naim Karacand and Toufic Moubaid, from his Columbia Records days, and Mike Hamway gave crowds their money’s worth in music.

One of the last newspaper stories to mention a Moses Cohen performance, The Morning Call, October 28, 1947. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

Moses Cohen disappears from the mainstream and Arab American press after 1947. Derbecke player Mike Hamway and oudist Toufic Moubaid lived another eighteen and twenty years respectively. Naim Karacand lived until 1973. It appears Moses Cohen, however, did not have that much time. On the cloudy and foggy, Saturday, morning filled with intermittent drizzle that was 6 November 1948, Moses Cohen died at 69 years old. He was survived by his wife Fahra (who went by Florence or Fannie) and five children who were all adults at the time of his passing. The Brooklyn Eagle, around this time noted that Jewish refugees, who had survived the concentration camps and whose families had been killed during World War II were flown to New York's LaGuardia Airport were on the way to new homes. Like Syrian Jews before them and other new arrivals from Syria in the 1940s, Brooklyn soon became home to one of the largest Syrian Jewish populations in the United States.

* In 1947, Alamphon Records was still at its 123 Court Street address and did not move to 182 Atlantic Avenue until 1954.

Richard M. Breaux

© Midwest Mahjar