Kerakh shel romi (City of Rome)

Israel Moses Ḥazan, born in Smyrna and raised in Jerusalem, was from a rabbinic family of Spanish and Turkish origin. He was appointed as a jurist in Jerusalem in 1842 and became an emissary in London for the Jewish community of Jerusalem in 1844. While in London, he condemned the reforms issued by the Brunswick rabbinical conference, in the form of a pamphlet, Kin’at tsiyon (1846). In 1847, he became chief rabbi of Rome, and later served in Corfu and Alexandria. He also composed religious poetry. In 1862, he moved back to the Land of Israel but died in Beirut.