Simon Benzaquen, a Seattle rabbi, first earned fame as the “Rapping Rabbi” for his recordings and performances with rapper Nissim in 2013, but he has since found a way to use the same music to further one of his personal passions: preserving the Ladino language. In an effort to ensure that the language of Sephardic Jews doesn’t go the way of extinct languages such as Tillamook or Tasmanian, the rabbi’s latest project keeps the tunes of old Sephardic songs but revises the lyrics. Collaborating with Alex Hernandez (the self-proclaimed “first rapper in north Mexico”), Benzaquen hopes to finish the first ever Ladino rap music album by the end of the year.
Benzaquen met Nissim and, later, Hernandez when both men came to the synagogue he led, Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, to convert to Judaism (the rabbi has since retired). The two would-be converts previously had successful rap careers — Nissim under the name D. Black, and Hernandez on his own and as part of a band called Orgullo Mexicano (Mexican Pride). When Benzaquen first met Nissim, his feelings about rap were what one might expect. “Rap didn’t resonate with me. There was no message, no value,” Benzaquen said. But digging deeper, he discovered how hip-hop, for African-Americans, represented the “expression of how they felt every day.” The African-American experience is not very far from the Jewish experience of discrimination and persecution, he said.
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