Moshe Ashear - חכם משה אשקר הכוהן

Ashear was born at the end of 1877. He was one of many students that Tabboush had. But he was also one of his favorites and his closest. In fact Ashear wrote down many of Tabboush's songs because Tabboush was blind. In 1904 he became the hazzan and qore in Knis Kebirah in Aleppo until 1913 when he moved to New York.

Moses Ashear was adopted by Raphael Taboush as a young child, having lost his parents. Ashear was taught music, poetry, and the love for pizmonim. In 1912, Moses Ashear immigrated to New York, where he lived first in Manhattan and later in Brooklyn. He brought with him the pizmonim from Aleppo that he had learned from Taboush, and composed many new pizmonim as well. Moses Ashear would listen to recordings of new Arabic songs to learn new melodies and thereby create new pizmonim.

When in Brooklyn, Ashear was a constant reference to past pizmonim as well as a bridge to the new. He would help to identify some forgotten songs and teach others in order to continue the transmission of pizmonim.

His passing was on 2 Hol Hamoed Sukkot 1940.

We have copies of his weekly notes for the last 4 years of his life (1937, 1938, 1939, 1940).

He is a direct uninterrupted link to the sources. In general if there is a discrepancy between him and the Red Book go with him unless all the other sources give me a reason to say otherwise.

When Ashear was nearing his end and the community did not know what to do and who to replace him with, they asked him and he said what do you have to worry about. Just take Nissim Franco!!

Isaac Cabasso's father, Ya'aqob Cabasso was also a student of Tabboush and he accompanied him on numerous occassions from Arab musical venues, when they would leave Tabboush would compose pizmonim to the songs they just heard while walking home.

These are the names of hazzanim from the years of 1900-1950 that come to mind are: Eliyahou Menaged, Ralph Marcus, Abraham Massry, David Shamula, Isaac Toussie, David Shabbot.