Azuby, Abraham

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AZUBY, ABRAHAM

AZUBY, ABRAHAM (1738–1805), first paid minister (rabbi-ḥazzan) of K.K. Beth Elohim Congregation in Charleston, South Carolina. Born in Amsterdam, Azuby went to Charleston in 1784 with a knowledge of Hebrew and synagogal experience in the Sephardi rite as practiced in the Dutch city, which was also the practice at Beth Elohim. He was engaged in 1785 to succeed Abraham *Alexander, Sr.

bibliography:

B.A. Elzas, The Jews of South Carolina (1905), passim; C. Reznikoff and U.Z. Engelman, The Jews of Charleston (1950), 113, 245f., 284. add. bibliography: J.W. Hagy, This Happy Land: The Jews of Colonial and Antebellum Charleston (1993), 68.

[Thomas J. Tobias]