Abraham Lopes Cardozo was hazzan

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

 of Congregation Shearith Israel

Congregation Shearith Israel

Congregation Shearith Israel, often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, is the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. It was established in 1654....

, the historic Spanish and Portuguese

Spanish and Portuguese Jews

Spanish and Portuguese Jews are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula and who shaped communities mainly in Western Europe and the Americas from the late 16th century on...

 Synagogue in New York City.

Born in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Holland, he was the great-grandson of the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic

Sephardi Jews

Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...

 community in Amsterdam. In 1939 he was appointed by Queen Wilhemina

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

Wilhelmina was Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. She ruled the Netherlands for fifty-eight years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial...

 to be the rabbi of the Sephardic community in Surinam. He became Assistant Hazzan at Shearith Israel in 1946 and continued to 1986.

Rabbi Cardozo died on February 21, 2006.

External links

• Music of Abraham Lopes Cardozo
• The Western Sephardi Liturgical Tradition
• Congregation Shearith Israel - The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City
• Portugese Synagoge in Amsterdam
• Guide to the Papers of Abraham and Irma Lopes Cardozo
• New York Times obituary
• "As I Lived It" by Irma Miriam Lopes Carodozo – ISBN 978-1-4499-1790-6 – memoirs of Abraham Lopes Cardozo's wife