Under Rav Ovadiah’s spiritual guidance, the political trajectory of Shas saw a remarkable ascent

Location: Israel

Document: The Jerusalem Post

Time: 1984

The story of Israel’s Shas party is inextricably linked with the formidable legacy of Rav Ovadiah Yosef. His profound Torah scholarship and fervent dedication to uplifting Sephardic Jews and strengthening their traditions provided the ideological backbone for the Shas movement until his 2013 passing. As his tenth yahrtzeit approaches, his influence still guides the party as it enters its fourth decade.

Rav Ovadiah Yosef’s brilliance in Torah was evident early on. Born in Baghdad in 1920, he was four years old when his family moved to Yerushalayim. At age 12 he entered the prestigious Yeshivat Porat Yosef in the Old City, where he became a close student of Rav Ezra Attiyah. At the age of only 18, while he was still a talmid at Porat Yosef, he began delivering a weekly halachah shiur in the Ohel Rachel synagogue in the Beis Yisrael neighborhood.

In the early 20th century, the benchmark of Sephardic halachic tradition was the Ben Ish Chai, Rav Yosef Chaim, longtime chief rabbi of Baghdad and the undisputed Sephardic posek of his generation. The young Rav Ovadiah noted that the esteemed Ben Ish Chai often disputed the halachic position of the Beit Yosef in Shulchan Aruch. The 18-year-old maggid shiur gained some renown and aroused controversy for defending the position of the Beit Yosef against the Ben Ish Chai. This would become a hallmark of Rav Ovadiah’s decades-long rabbinical career in psak.

When he was 20 years old, he received rabbinical ordination from the chief rabbi, Rav Bentzion Meir Chai Uziel, and Rav Ovadiah subsequently served as a dayan on the Sephardic Beit Din of Yerushalayim. Upon the recommendation of Rav Uziel, Rav Ovadiah moved to Egypt in 1947, where he served as a rabbinical assistant to the aging chief rabbi, Rav Chaim Nachum Effendi. Though his stint in Egypt lasted only three years, it was to have an outsized impact on his world outlook and rabbinical career.