The Rahbany Brothers
The beginning was in Antelias, Lebanon, where
Assi was born in 1923, followed two years later by
his younger brother Mansour in 1925.
Their father was
Hanna Elias Rahbany, a well known “heavy”
condemned to death by the Ottomans. He was able to escape and settled in Antelias, north of Beirut, where
he opened a café-restaurant in an area called “Alfawwar” at the edge of town. The place was known for its natural beauty, clear waters and cool weather which made it very popular for those interested in a quiet and pleasant setting. Hanna was strict in his conservative ways, separating family tables from others with hanging sheets and forbidding even holding of hands in his restaurant.
Assi and Mansour used to spend six months in school each year. After which, their father would take them out in order to help him at the restaurant in the spring, convincing their mother that they had “had enough” that year.
The boys grew up in this atmosphere: Strict codes of ethics and behavior on one side, music and art on another, and a rural climate with clear running waters during summer and rain and thunderous storms in winter on the third.
As Mansour tells it,
Assi’s cleverness was noticed at an early age and he was expected to grow up to become a poet or an artist. Mansour himself, however, was expected to grow up to become a thug at best.