Shlomo Amar

Shlomo Amar was born in 1948 in Casablanca

Shlomo Amar was born in Casablanca, Morocco, to Eliyahu and Miriam Amar. He studied at Jewish schools in the city and at a Chabad yeshiva in France. In 1962 his family immigrated to Israel and settled in Pardes Hanna.

From 1963 to 1967 he studied at yeshivas in Bnei Brak, then moved to the yeshiva in Shlomi. He studied to become a rabbinical judge under Rabbi Yaakov Nissan Rosenthal of Haifa. In 1970 he became rabbi and head of kashrut at the religious council of Nahariya.

He served in the IDF in the unit for identifying fallen soldiers within the Military Rabbinate, and continued there in the reserves. He taught Jewish law on respect for the dead in army courses.

In 1982 he was appointed a rabbinical judge in Safed and later headed the Petah Tikva rabbinical court. He was elected chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 2002 and Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel in 2003, also leading the Great Rabbinical Court. He worked to bring the Falash Mura to Israel and in 2006 proposed removing the conversion clause from the Law of Return.

In October 2014 he became Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and finished the role in December 2023. He and his wife Mazal have 12 children. Bar-Ilan University gave him an honorary doctorate in 2017.