Hana Rached: After Stellar Career Among the Maghreb and Mashriq, a Jewish Tunisian Singer Joins the Mahjari Mahrajan Circuit
Hana Rached:
After Stellar Career Among the Maghreb and Mashriq, a Jewish Tunisian Singer Joins the Mahjari Mahrajan Circuit
 |
| Photo of Hana Rached from her El Djamal 45 rpm single record cover. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. |
Most of the singers and musicians we've covered at Midwest Mahjar immigrated from or trace their ancestry to the Levant - the portion of the former Ottoman Greater Syria that today makes up Syria, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, and Jordan. In fact, about ninety percent of the artists that performed on the mahrajan circuit in the United States immigrated from or were the children/grandchildren of Mashriqi countries. The Arabic-language record business in the first five decades of the twentieth century reflected this fact. Most Arab and Arab American musicians in the early part of the twentieth century from the African continent came from, or had connections with, Egypt. To be sure, Mayer and Naseem Murad were Arabic-speaking Jews born in Egypt, but traced their ancestry to Morocco. Moses Cohen was born in Aleppo, but lived in Egypt before immigrating to the United States. Hana Rached, the Tunisian Jewish singer, stands out as an exception.
Like Mohammed El-Akkad, Hana Rached descended from a musical legacy that included her aunt, Rabita al-Chamia, and her mother, Flifla al-Chamia. Born in 1933 in Tunis, Tunisia, we know very little about Hana Rached's childhood, but Rached's mother continued her acting and singing career. Flifla appeared in The Fool of Kairoun in 1939 with Mohamed Jamoussy. We don't know exactly when Rached took interest in music but we do know that her mother and aunt's careers immersed her in Tunisia's arts scene.
Much of our knowledge and information about North African Jewish and Muslim musicians during the twentieth century's 78 rpm era comes to us via the ground-breaking scholarship of Christopher Silver. An ethnomusicologist, historian, author of Recorded History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth Century North Africa, and creator of the Gharamophone.com website, Silver's research untangles the complex intersections between colonialism, nationalism, independence, and nostalgia across Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco as the region's cultural and political history shifted.
By the time she was seven, Hana Rached and her family in French-colonized Tunisia became targets of the Vichy anti-Jewish Statutes implemented by the Vichy French government at home and in its colonies. Tunisia specially enacted legislation by November 30, 1940; two years later Germany-occupied Tunisia. It took Allied efforts, which combined military forces from Free-France, the United States, Britain, Greece, and New Zealand, to defeat Germany over the course of six months. The political struggle for Tunisian independence ensued.
In her teens, Hana Rached began to follow the family business performing at private events like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and bar mitzvah parties. One of the artists Rached gravitated toward was the Lebanese singer Janet Gerges Feghali also known as Sabah. Sabah made her debut recording as recently as 1940 and appeared in Egyptian cinema in 1945. Beyond the world of entertainment, the New Constitutional Liberal Party leader Habib Bougriba returned to Tunisia in 1949 after years of exile in Egypt.
Two sources, one by Tahar Megilli and the other by Mohamed Maghrebi, relay all of what we know about Hana Rached for the decade between 1951 and 1961. She embarks on a public career in 1951 and she is soon a hit in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria. She appears in a production of Shakespear's The Merchants of Venice directed by Egyptian Zaki Talaimat and follows-up with an appearance in the "One Thousand and One Nights" radio series, broadcast from Egypt.
 |
| Ad from 22 June 1961, Caravan. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
Brooklyn's Caravan newspaper first announced Rached's arrival in April 1961, introducing her to its mostly Levantine American audience by highlighting her success in Egypt and other Arab countries. The article both mentioned her famous aunt and mother, but also photographically linked Rached to star-Egyptian singer and composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab and the equally recognizable Syrian-Egyptian singer Farid al-Atrash. This lent Rached a level of immediate credibility among those who had not already heard or bought her music in the United States. One of her first documented performances in the United States, of course, matched her with Egyptian American kanunist Mohammed El-Akkad. The remaining ensemble for this hafla sponsored by and held at Sacred Heart Church in Paterson, New Jersey on January 28, 1961, included Naim Karacand, and George and Mike Hamway. A few months later, Hana Rached performed for throngs of people at "Evening with Danny Thomas" on April 29, 1961, at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. A reported 1,100 people packed the event. Additional acts for this "three-hour" extravaganza consisted of Eddie Kochak and his Orchestra, and a host of local and regional musicians and dancers. Funds raised during the course of the evening went to ALSAC and Saint Jude Hospital.
 |
| Hana Rached from a 27 April 1961 article in the Caravan. Courtesy of Newspapers.com |
After her appearance at the "Evening with Danny Thomas," Hana Rached travelled throughout the Northeast and upper Midwest. Major tour stops included the Cedars of Lebanon Club in Buffalo, New York, operated by the Abraham sisters - Teresa, Anna, and Rose. Teresa was married to musician Antoine Hage. Stops in New,Jersey and Detroit, Michigan, followed. Rached, in fact, headlined at the halfa hosted at the Ladies Charity Hall in Detroit on 17 September 1961.
 |
| Hana Rached's single "El Jamal/El Djamal". Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection. https://youtu.be/GSJ0d6Ra6nU |
Reports of Hana Rached's performances disappeared for a year only to intermittently reappear over the next two decades. On July 19-21, 1963, the Tunisian Nights program at the Al-Zahra Salon of the Arts on Long Island, featured Hana Rached and Mohammed El-Akkad. Just over a month later, Rached, Naim Karacand, Anton Abdelahad, Djamal Aslan, and the Zamelkani Trio jammed at the mahrajan co-sponsored by Saint George Syrian Orthodox Church, Saint Ann's Melkite Church, and Saint Anthony's Maronite Church near Danbury, Connecticut on 21 August to 2 September 1963. Some 6, 500 people attended this massive three-day festival. When Saint George's Orthodox Church in Glens Falls, New York, held its annual hafla at the Chateau de Louis June 12-13, 1965, Semi Sheheen, Djamal Aslan, Ray Shaheen, and Hana Rached received top billing. Saint George booked almost the exact same line-up again the following year for its June hafla in 1966, as well. A fundraiser to assist Saint Michael Orthodox Church in Geneva, New York pay off its mortgage starred Elie Baida, Antoine Hage, and Hana Rached on May 6, 1967.
 |
| A rare US recording by Hana Rached. Richard M. Breaux collection. "Ya Saba El Khayr," Side A: https://youtu.be/VNP61X6Eaq4 |
The Golden Age of the hafla circuit subsided by the 1970s, Hana Rached continued to perform here and there, though not entirely, her popularity across most of the eastern seaboard diminished. According to some sources, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and other Arab Americans who were second and third-generation born in the United States identified less and less with the former Ottoman-controlled Greater Syria or Bilad al Sham and more with their more contemporary nationalities and nation-states. While some remained more Pan-Arab in their outlooks and worldviews, others dropped the use of the once-catch-all term Syrian, referring to themselves as Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, or Palestinian. Furthermore, in some communities, some ethnic groups in the United States that once lived under Ottoman rule socialized less with ethnic groups that also once lived in the Ottoman Empire. This was not true for all or most, but it sometimes meant that some Turkish Americans, Armenian Americans, Arab Americans, Greek Americans, may have been less likely to perform together or attended each other's events. This had a significant impact on the size, reach, and cultural influence on some haflat and Mahrajanat. Others shifted their attention and efforts more fully toward the night club and supper club scene.
By the mid to late 1970s, Hana Rached sang at private events like weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays, than at existing mahrajan. Following the trajectory of many of her peers, Rached regularly sang at the Haji Baba at 116 MacDougal Street in New York City. One occasion in January, 1976, found Hana Rached in Charleston, West Virginia singing in "Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, and French" at the wedding party for Linda Rueben and Dr. John Walden. Reportedly, Carolyn Shalhoup and Marjorie Pikulin accompanied Rached on the derbeke and riqq or tambourine respectively. In September and October 1978, the Haji Baba featured Rached as a Middle Eastern dancer and signer. Recall, Hana Rached's mother, Flifa Chamia, started her own career in movies and music as a dancer. Rached had since begun to master the oud.
 |
| Hana Rached, Glens Falls Times 26 May 1965. |
Rumors swirled about who Hana traveled with and dated, but we were never able to confirm any of the stories we heard. We reached out to rumored suitors and their relatives but we remained unsuccessful in getting any replies.
The 1993 Tunisian Song Festival brought Hana Rached back to Tunis for the first time. Fans cheerfully celebrated the return of their native daughter and her stellar performance, even if only temporarily.
According to most secondary sources, Hana Rached died 8 August 2003 in New York City. Government documents confirming this are nearly impossible to find. Rached appeared in various US newspapers between 1960 and 1978, but very few immigration or other US government documents exist for her in publicly accessible form. We welcome any additional information or corrections enthusiastically.
Special Thanks to Christopher Silver and Raymond Rashid.
Richard M. Breaux
© Midwest Mahjar
Comments
Post a Comment