Religionעובדיה יוסף

Ovadia Joseph

Ovadia Yosef was an Iraqi-born rabbi and halakhic authority who served as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and founded the Shas party.

1920 to 2013Sephardi Chief Rabbi of IsraelFounding the Shas partyThe halakhic work Yabia Omer

Born: 23 September 1920, Baghdad
Died: 7 October 2013, Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital
Occupation: rabbi, Posek, Dayan
Party: Shas
Education: Porat Joseph Yeshiva

Ovadia Joseph was born in 1920 in Baghdad

Yosef was born in Baghdad to Yaakov and Gorgia. In 1924 the family moved to Jerusalem and settled in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, where his father ran a grocery store. The family was poor, and his teachers persuaded his father to let him keep studying.

He studied at Talmud Torah Bnei Zion and from 1933 at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva under Rabbi Ezra Attiya. In 1937 he began giving a daily halakha lesson, where he often disagreed with the rulings of the Ben Ish Hai. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1940.

In 1944 he married Margalit Fattal, and they had 11 children. In 1947 he moved to Cairo, where he taught and headed the rabbinical court, but he resigned over disputes about kashrut. He returned to Israel in 1950.

He served as a rabbinic judge in Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, joined the Supreme Rabbinical Court in 1965, and became Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1968. He published the halakhic works Hazon Ovadia and Yabia Omer and received the Israel Prize in 1970. He then served as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel until 1983.

In 1984 he founded Shas and remained its spiritual leader until his death. For over 50 years he gave weekly Saturday night lessons. In 2005 a man was convicted of plotting to kill him. He died in 2013.