Haim Sabato

Haim Sabato was born in 1952 in Cairo

Haim Sabato was born in Cairo in 1952 to David and Marcel Sabato, a family with roots in Aleppo, Syria. His family moved to Israel in the 1950s, after his father was arrested for Zionist activity. He grew up in a housing area for new immigrants in Beit Mazmil, Jerusalem, in hard economic conditions.

He studied at a Talmud Torah in Bayit Vegan and then at the Netiv Meir yeshiva high school. He went on to Yeshivat Hakotel in the Old City of Jerusalem. After the Yom Kippur War he studied at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav and received rabbinical ordination.

He served in the IDF through the Hesder program and was moved to the Armored Corps as a tank gunner. As a reservist he fought in the Yom Kippur War on the Golan Heights. After the war he chose to devote his life to Torah study.

In 1977 he co-founded Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Ma'ale Adumim with Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat, where he teaches first-year students. He later became one of its heads. His novels draw on his family history, his childhood and the war, and Adjusting Sights won the Sapir Prize and was made into a film in 2003.

He also writes rabbinical works and poetry, including a 2024 book of poems. He lives in Ma'ale Adumim, is married to Shoshana and has 2 sons.