Bracha Kapach

Bracha Kapach was born in 1923 in Yemen

Bracha Kapach was born in Sanaa, Yemen, into the Saleh family. At 11 she married her cousin Yosef Kapach, who later became a rabbi and an Israel Prize laureate. Their children included David, Naomi and Yahya.

In 1943 the family left for the Land of Israel, traveling by donkey to the port of Aden. Her son Yahya died on the way. Another son, Arieh, was born after they arrived.

The family lived in Tel Aviv and later moved to the Nahlaot area of Jerusalem. She ran an embroidery workshop for Yemenite women and a secondhand clothing center that also loaned wedding dresses to poor brides. She founded the charity Segulat Naomi and organized holiday food packages for the needy for decades.

In 1976 she toured the United States to raise funds for a Yemenite Jewish heritage center in Jerusalem. She was named a Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem in 1992 and received the Israel Prize in 1999. She died on 26 November 2013, and in 2018 a street in Nahlaot was named for her and her husband.