Albert Elia and the Last Echo of Lebanese Jewry

By Aurele Tobelem.

Libi b-Mizraḥ, v-anokhi b-sof Ma‘arav.
Eikh et‘ama et asher okhal, v-eikh ye‘erav?

My heart is in the East, and I in the farthest West.
How should I savour what I eat? How can it bring me rest?[1]

Yehuda HaLevi’s immortal words, penned in al-Andalus nearly a thousand years ago, echo through the centuries— a testament to a people forever suspended between the land that birthed them and the lands that would claim them, yet never truly as their own.

HaLevi was the greatest poet of Sepharad, his verses steeped in longing for a land he had never seen. So powerful was his yearning for Zion that he left behind the grandeur of al-Andalus, only to perish in Alexandria, tantalisingly close yet forever barred from his destination.[2] For centuries, diasporic Jews would see in his story a cruel reflection of their own: the dream of return, always just beyond reach. For Albert Elia, the last executive secretary of Beirut’s Jewish community, HaLevi was more than a poet – he was a voice from the past that spoke to an uncertain present. As Elia translated HaLevi’s verses, his heart remained bound to an East that had turned against him, unaware that his own fate would come to reflect their sorrow.

Albert Elia was born in Beirut in 1904 to Obadia Elia and Gilsom Farhi,[3] in a region where Jews had lived for centuries in relative peace, as neighbours, merchants, doctors, and citizens. Lebanon prided itself on its pluralism, its Jews counted among its parliamentarians, diplomats, and poets. Yet, Elia would live to witness the slow unravelling of that delicate coexistence. As the longtime Secretary of the Jewish Community Council, he bore the quiet burdens of leadership: safeguarding the community’s interests, maintaining ties with authorities, and, when the time came, helping Jews from neighbouring Syria escape a regime that sought to erase them.[4]

By the late 1960s, Syria’s Jewish population had been stripped of citizenship, forbidden to emigrate, and placed under constant surveillance. Many who attempted to flee were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Lebanon became a narrow corridor of hope. It was Elia, through quiet diplomacy and moral conviction, who made that passage possible. He knew the risk. A month before his disappearance, he had requested police protection after reporting that he was being followed. The guard was removed when officials judged there to be no danger.

On 6 September 1971, as he walked from his home to his office at the Magen Abraham Synagogue, Elia was kidnapped. His distressed wife, Lily, reported him missing to Lebanese authorities later that day.[5] 

Initially, it was reported that he had been abducted by Palestinians, though this was fiercely denied by Palestinian operatives in Lebanon. Ten days later, it was rumoured that he was in Syria, sparking hopes that he was still alive. It was later reported that he had been abducted by Syrian agents and died after being brutally tortured in Damascus’s al-Mazeh prison.[6]

The impact on Lebanon’s Jews was immediate and profound. Elia had not just been a public official, but a symbol of the vain hope that Jews might yet have a future in the Middle East beyond Israel. His disappearance marked the end of that illusion. The community, already shrinking, began to dissolve in earnest. By the outbreak of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975, most of its Jews had disappeared without leaving a trace. 

Among the liturgical texts that Albert Elia held close was Lekhā Eli Teshuqati – “To You, my God, is my longing” – a Yom Kippur piyyut that, like so much of medieval Sephardi poetry, walks the seam between confession and communion, exile and embrace. Traditionally attributed to Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra of Toledo, the poem has, at times, been misattributed to Yehuda HaLevi: a confusion Elia himself appears to have shared.[7] And yet, there is something in that error that feels almost providential. The poem’s voice— yearning, intimate, and stripped of certainty— bears the unmistakable imprint of HaLevi’s spiritual idiom, the trembling soul trapped in that liminal space between hope and agony, longing only for return. 

Elia translated Lekhā Eli into Arabic in the final years of his life. It was not the work of an administrator, but of a poet in his own right, fluent in the languages of the region, and steeped in its devotional currents. The Arabic is not a literal rendering; it is an interpretation, a spiritual re-voicing. Elia renders the Hebrew opening as Ilayka Allahumma tatajjih laffatī. The word teshuqati, rooted in desire and passionate yearning, becomes laffatī– a tender glance, a flicker of attention. In his translation, Elia downshifts the emotional register. Fierce desire becomes quiet, reflective nostalgia. 

The Hebrew continues: Umah ani umah ḥayai - “What am I, what is my life?” Elia replaces the rhetorical lament with Ana ilayka mā dumtu ḥayyan - “I am Yours for as long as I live.” The shift is striking. Rather than mirror the original’s existential questioning, Elia answers it. Later, the Hebrew pleads: Vetaḥat tzel kenāfekha - “Let me dwell under the shadow of Your wings.” Elia responds with  Kun ‘awnī fī ‘aynayya – “Be my help before my eyes.” The rich imagery of divine shelter is traded for a more immediate plea for clarity. In a world darkening around him, he asks his Creator to light a candle.  

The original ends with an expression that our people know all too well: hope for messianic salvation. Vesham tihyeh yeshivatī – “And there shall be my dwelling,” in Eden, among angels. Elia quiets that vision: Bika tulqā masarratī – “In You, my joy is found.” Paradise, in his version, is not a place but the presence of God. To him, the final destination is not Eden, but the stillness of being heard. 

Elia’s translation of Lekhā Eli was an act of love – of his God, his people, and the East that had shaped him. He gave an ancient poem a new voice, one marked by quiet faith and personal sorrow. He revealed a private exile and a persistent hope that the soul, even when lost, might still find its way home. Elia left no last words, no grave, no farewell. He vanished without ceremony, betrayed by a region that could no longer tolerate its own Jews. What remains is the poem he translated: an enduring, unspoken offering.  

We might speak of Elia as a remnant of a vanished world. But he was far from a remnant: he was a witness. Through his poetry, we are reminded that despite being consigned to the depths of the diaspora, our hearts always knew the way home. ◦

Aurele Tobelem is a final-year History undergraduate at King’s College London, specializing in colonial North African history. He serves as the Director of Research at the Forum for Foreign Relations and as Middle East Editor for the King’s Geopolitics Forum. Aurele has contributed to publications such as The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Quillette, and Global Arab Network, focusing on regional security, interfaith relations, and political dynamics in the Middle East. 

References 

[1] Yehudah HaLevi, לבי במזרח (My Heart is in the East). Available on https://benyehuda.org/read/8780, accessed 26 March 2025. My translation from the original Hebrew.

[2] While some scholars have argued that HaLevi made it as far as Ashkelon, there is no documentary evidence to support this thesis. The last record we have of HaLevi is from his time in Alexandria. Even if he had made it as far as southern Israel, his real target would have been to reach the Holy City of Jerusalem. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/halevi/#Lif, accessed 26 March 2025. 

[3] As indicated on Elia’s family card: https://www.farhi.org/wc01/wc01_281.html, accessed 14 April 2025.  

[4] Kirsten E. Schulze, The Jews Of Lebanon: Between Coexistence And Conflict, Second Revised and Expanded Edition (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2009), p.102-103. 

[5] The New York Times, 9 September 1971, p.6: ‘A month ago, Mr. Elia had been given police protection, at his request. He had reported that certain unidentified persons were watching him. The guard was removed a few days later when the authorities felt that there was no danger to his life.’

[6] Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon, p.143-45. See also the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Daily News Bulletin, 3 April 1985, p.4: ‘Subsequent investigations disclosed that the kidnappers had been working for Syrian intelligence. Elia died after having been tortured in the al-Mazeh prison outside of Damascus.’

[7] https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2020/06/lebanese-jewish-leader-was-poet-and.html, accessed 14 April 2025.  See also https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/music/jewish-music/piyut/piyut/lekha-eli-teshukati, accessed 14 April 2025.