Mordechai Eliyahu

Mordechai Eliyahu was born in 1929 in Jerusalem

Eliyahu was born in 1929 in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. His father, Salman Eliyahu, was a Kabbalist of Iraqi Jewish origin, and his mother Mazal was a sister of Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka. The family was poor, and his father died while he was a child.

He studied at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva with rabbis such as Ezra Attiya. He also learned from the Chazon Ish and received rabbinic ordination from Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim.

In 1950 and 1951 he was among the leaders of Brit HaKanaim, a religious underground that opposed secularization. He was arrested in 1951 and sentenced to 10 months in prison. He later said the path he had chosen was mistaken.

From 1960 he served as a dayan in Beersheba, then moved to the Jerusalem regional rabbinical court and later joined the Supreme Rabbinical Court. In 1983 he was chosen as Rishon LeZion and served alongside Rabbi Avraham Shapira until 1993. During his term he reached out to secular Israelis and visited Jewish communities abroad.

After his term he remained a spiritual leader in Religious Zionism and is seen as a founder of the Hardal movement. He held public positions on politics, including opposition to the 2005 Gaza disengagement, and some of his statements drew controversy. He died in 2010 and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.