Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Franco

THE SEPHARDI COMMUNITY OF JERUSALEM BEFORE WORLD WAR I: A NOTE ON A DOMINANT COMMUNITY ON THE DECLINE By Akira USUKI

In 1911, Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Franco (1837-1918) from Rhodes, entered Jerusalem as an elder arbitrator between the two camps. Rabbi Franco had retired from Hakhm Bashi in Rhodes owing to his old age. He reluctantly accepted the office in Jerusalem so that a recurrence of the inner strife would be prevented. He was the sole and last Hakham Bashi appointed formally by Firman since the death of Rabbi Elyashar in 1906. In spite of his efforts to mediate between the two camps, Rabbi Franco failed in calming the internal strife. After the First World War broke out in 1914, he had to concentrate on working for Yishuv in order to collect money for relief of Jewish families whose heads were enlisted in the Ottoman army. Finally he retired in 1915. Rabbi Nissim Danon (1874-1930) had held the acting Hakham Bakshi until the end of the Ottoman Empire without any real authority, with only the honorary title of Rishon le-Tziyon(46).