HAKHAM ABDALLAH HILLEL
Hakham Abdallah Ben Hakham Abraham Ben-Hakham Moshe Ben Hakham Haron Hille (1891-1987) was the spiritual leader of the Sephardi Community of Montreal (1959 - 1973).
One of the most famous families of Iraqi extraction is the Hillel family. The best known was Hillel Hazaken, who founded the dynasty in Babylon in the Hebrew Year 3717, or 44 BCE, namely 112 years before the destruction of the second temple.
It was from that period that the "Beit Hillel" school of thought became known to the Jewish world.
Abdallah Hillel was born in Baghdad in 1891, the son of Mess'ouda Moshe Raby and Hakham Abraham Moshe Hillel (1824-1920), who served three times as Chief Rabbi of Iraq at the turn of the century. Abdallah Hillel studied Torah at the "Beit-Zilkha" Yeshiva in Baghdad, headed at the time by Hakham Yousef Haim. He continued his high Torah studies at Meir Elias Synagogue.
In 1915 he married Farha, the daughter of Hakham Moshe Dengoor.
In the early 1920s part of his family emigrated to India and established the Hillel dynasty there. One of the descendants of the "Indian branch" of the Hillel family is Hakham Yacob Hillel who is a head of yeshiva in Jerusalem and a known scholar in Kabbalah. Hakham Yacob's grandfather Heskel is Abdallah Hillel's brother.
After the mass emigration of Jews from Iraq in 1950-1951, Abdallah Hillel established a yeshiva at the Rekheita Synagogue under the auspices of Hakham Sasson Khedouri, the head of the Iraqi Jewish Community at the time.
In 1957, Abdallah Hillel left Iraq for London, and in 1959 he emigrate to Montreal, Canada, where he served as a spiritual leader for the Sephardi Jewish Community until his retirement in 1973.
On 28 September 1986, a Sefer Torah was dedicated in his honor at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Shearith Israel in Montreal. The Sefer Torah was fully written in Israel, except for the last 15 letters. when members of his family were called during the ceremony to write them.
Other distinguished kinsmen of the late Abdallah Hillel are as follows:
The head of the Talmud Torah in Baghdad at the beginning of the tewntieth century, Hakham Heskel Al-Wakil, was Abdallah Hillel's cousin.
The grandfather of Mr. Shlomo Hillel ( fromer Israeli Minister of Police, Minister of Interior , Speaker of the Kenesset and currently Chairman of Keren Hayesod) was the brother of Hakham Abraham Hillel namely Abdallah Hillel's uncle.
Abdallah Hillel had four chidlren: Edward, (1918 - 1947), Abraham (Aby) of Montreal, Victor of New York, Jamil (Jimmy) of Ottawa, and Violet Lawee of Boston.
* "Hakham": Abdallah Hillel was never ordained as a rabbi, but the Sephardi Jewish Community in Montreal always referred to him as such, due to his wide knowledge of the Zohar, Talmud and the Gmarah comparable with that of other known Sephardi scholars in Montreal at the time.
N.B. Abdallah Hillel is my father's uncle, that is, my grandmother's brother. I received all the above information from my father Eliahou (Elias) Shohet, and it may be considered accurate.
Maurice Shohet
New York