Origins Solomon Calvo and Jacob Policar, both from the
island of Marmara arrived in Seattle in 1902, the first
Sephardic Jews to arrive in that city. They also purchased a section of the Bikur Cholim cemetery. Rabbi Shelomo Azose, a
hakham (Torah scholar) who had served in both Tekirdağ and Marmara, arrived in Seattle 1910; he became a combination rabbi,
hazzan or cantor,
mohel (performing
circumcision), and
shochet (
kosher slaughterer of animals). He died in 1919; his brother, Isaac Azose, succeeded him 1919–1924. and who had been the rabbi in Tekirdağ when many of the SBH members had lived there, indicated his interest in moving to Seattle. The matter was complicated by the
Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the
Immigration Act of 1924, but matters were worked through, and in September 1924 he became the congregation's new rabbi. Although Rabbi Maimon's tenure proved short—he died in January 1931—the congregation grew and prospered during those years. Attendance at the
Shabbat services increased, and members of the congregation adopted stricter observance of Shabbat and of
kashrut (kosher) practices. The congregation established the role of a
gabbai to assist during services and a
shamash to open and close the synagogue daily. Avram Barlia was to perform the latter function for over 50 years. In the days before the widespread availability of telephones, he went house to house, extending invitations for engagements, weddings, and so forth. SBH began to outgrow its facility at 13th and Washington and, in 1928, SBH bought a property at 20th Avenue and East Fir Street, and managed to raise the funds to build a synagogue in time for the 1929
Rosh Hashanah services. The new sanctuary was officially inaugurated Sunday, September 29, 1929. Meanwhile, Rabbi Shabetai Israel left the Ahavath Ahim congregation in 1929, and they did not readily find a successor. The majority of the members of Ahavath Ahim voted in 1931 to amalgamate with SBH; a few joined Ezra Bessaroth and a smaller number decided to continue as an independent synagogue, with Morris Scharhon (who by now also operated the Talmud Torah) as their religious leader. For a time after this, SBH was known as Bikur Holim Ahavath Ahim Congregation; this was eventually shortened back to the original name. trained the singers and composed and arranged their
liturgical music. its Jews were becoming increasingly educated and prosperous, and most of the Jews were moving out, especially to the
Eastside suburbs,
Mercer Island in
Lake Washington, and the south Seattle neighborhood of Seward Park. The Ezra Bessaroth congregation built a new building in Seward Park in 1957, and SBH members began to gravitate in the same direction. was inaugurated for the High Holy Days in 1965.
Solomon Gaon, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, attended both the 50th anniversary celebration and the inauguration of the new synagogue. Gaon participated in the procession that carried the Torah scrolls from the old synagogue to the new, as did every Orthodox rabbi in Seattle. Solomon Maimon has also remained active, including serving as an interim rabbi for several smaller Sephardic congregations around the U.S. In the early 1990s he worked with several of his family members and others to establish the Seattle
Kollel (institute for advanced Jewish studies). Both he and Benzaquen were founding members in of Seattle's Va'ad HaRabanim (Committee of Rabbis), which replaced the former Seattle Kashrut Board. It continues the older organization's supervision of kosher food, but also provides a
Bet Din (Jewish court) for Seattle. and was ordained a rabbi in 1999. also recorded a CD:
Ottoman Hebrew Sacred Songs (1998), one of the few recordings of Ottoman Hebrew sacred music. At the time of his death, Edwin Seroussi of
Hebrew University called him "perhaps the last representative of a 400-year-old tradition of Turkish Jewish cantors who were experts in the singing of liturgical music according to
Ottoman court music." The Seattle chapter of the American Sephardi Federation (ASF), which includes members from both SBH and Ezra Bessaroth, hosted the 1989 ASF national meeting May 28–30, 1989 at Seattle's
Westin Hotel. Over 600 Sephardim attended.
Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israeli ambassador to Spain, was the keynote speaker, and among the panelists were news correspondent
Wolf Blitzer and Carlos Rizowy, an authority on international law. SBH congregants also played important roles in 1996 when Seattle hosted both the annual meeting of
Jewish Federations from throughout the U.S. and Canada and a meeting of the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools. The latter event included a Shabbat service during which SBH played host to 50 rabbis. In 1992, Seattle's Sephardic Jews commemorated the 500th anniversary of the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain with a procession from the Ezra Bessaroth synagogue to SBH, where they held memorial prayers, readings, addresses by the rabbis of the two congregations and a lecture by scholar Eugene Normand. For many decades, SBH used traditional Hebrew-English prayer books compiled by Rabbi David de Sola Pool. Since 1995, SBH has taken advantage of computer technology to publish its own religious books that more precisely meet its needs. The first was a
Passover Haggadah in Hebrew, Ladino and English, followed by a
Selichot booklet, containing the penitential poems and prayers used in the month of
Elul (before Rosh Hashanah) and the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur. In 2002, SBH, together with Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, published their own prayer books, the
Siddur Zehut Yosef, the
Seattle Sephardic Community Daily and
Shabbat Siddur, corresponding precisely to their own requirements and indicating explicitly the differences in their order of services (with the Ezra Bessaroth variations designated as "R" for "Rhodes" and SBH's as "T" for "Turkish"). All of the prayers are transcribed in both Hebrew and English on facing pages, as well as some in Ladino. Since that time, they have published several abridged
Siddurim and others that are specific to particular holidays. ==Recent events==