Yitzhak Kaduri

Yitzhak Kaduri was born in 1898 in Baghdad

Kaduri was born in Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire. His father was a spice trader. As a boy he studied at the Zilka Yeshiva and was a student of Rabbi Yosef Hayyim, and he began learning Kabbalah in his teens.

He moved to the Land of Israel in the 1920s and changed his name from Diba to Kaduri. He studied at the Shoshanim LeDavid yeshiva and at Porat Yosef in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1934 he settled in the Old City, where he bound books and copied manuscripts for Porat Yosef.

In 1948 the yeshiva was burned and many books were lost. In 1989 the kabbalists appointed him as their head. His son David founded the Nachalat Yitzchak yeshiva under him, and many people came to him for blessings and amulets.

In the 1996 Knesset elections he appeared at rallies for Shas, and amulets in his name were given to its supporters. He later broke with Shas, then returned to support it before the 17th Knesset elections.

His first wife Sara died in 1989, and he married Dorit in 1993. He died in Jerusalem on January 28, 2006, after being hospitalized with pneumonia. More than 200,000 people attended his funeral.