Baruch Ben Haim

In 2003 Ben Haim became seriously ill and was flown to Cleveland for an operation. At that time, the name Raphael was added to his Hebrew name (Baruch Raphael ben Miriam) as a prayer for a complete recovery. He recovered from the operation but his health deteriorated for beginning in April 2005 and died on June 2nd 2005.

Ben Haim served as assistant rabbi to Kassin in Congregation Shaare Zion, where he made a number of important contributions to the synagogue, including the establishment of the Shaare Zion Torah Center to educate the community in subjects of Torah and Jewish law. He officiated at thousands of weddings as well as bar mitzvahs and funerals. He also taught in Magen David Yeshiva for three decades, beginning in the early 1950s. He spent several months each summer in Deal and Bradley Beach, New Jersey, addressing and strengthening the Syrian Jewish community in those locales. As a public service, he recorded the Hebrew Psalms with the proper ta'amim (cantillation). The recordings were released to the public during his lifetime, and have been posted online after his death on the DailyTehillim.com website.

In 1949 he accepted the position of Assistant Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn upon the request of Isaac Shalom, president of Brooklyn’s Magen David Synagogue, who had asked Rabbi Attiya to send another rabbi. Ben Haim arrived in New York in January 1950. Two months later he became engaged to the daughter of Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin, Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. The couple married in May 1950 and had four sons: Rabbi Eli Ben Haim, former spiritual leader of the Lawrence Avenue Synagogue, Rabbi Dr Yaacov Ben Haim of Congregation Shaare Zion, Rabbi Dr Yehuda Ben Haim, and David Ben Haim.

Ben Haim received rabbinic ordination from his rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Ezra Attiya, and from the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel. For a while he served as a dayan (rabbinical court judge) on the Sephardi Beit Din in Jerusalem, together with Rabbis Attiya and Yehuda Shako. In 1947 he accepted a rabbinical position in an Ashkenazi community in South Africa, which he served for two years.

Baruch Ben Haim (Hebrew: ברוך בן חיים, November 18, 1921 – June 2, 2005) was a Sephardi Hakham who served as Chief Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York for 55 years. He taught at Magen David Yeshiva and established the Shaare Zion Torah Center at Congregation Shaare Zion. He was a protege of Rabbi Ezra Attiya, rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva, who trained and dispatched students to leadership positions in Sephardi communities around the world.

Ben Haim was born in Jerusalem in 1921. He was one of nine children of Haim Mizrahi and Miriam Shalom, both natives of Iraq. The family changed its surname from Mizrahi to Ben Haim ("son of Haim") after Haim Mizrahi's death in 1951 to honor their patriarch.