Shimon bar Nissim

Rabbi Shimon bar Nissim Shimon (also ben Nissim, fl. 19th-20th c.) was a teacher at the Rebecca Nouriel school in Baghdad and later the director of the Rachel Shahmon school. He was one of a group of poet teachers (Shmuel Shami, Ezra and Meir Zachary and Shlomo Nissim) who together composed several piyyutim. He served as a ḥazzan for decades in several synagogues in Baghdad, including the Albert Sasson synagogue, and was well versed in the maqams. He started his path in the world of education as a boy who would collect the children from their homes to the room that his father ran and then return them home. His experience as an Iraqi emigre to Israel in the early 1950s was difficult and he passed soon after his arrival. If you know more, please contact us.