Mordechai Eliyahu - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mordechai Tzemach Eliyahu ) (March 3, 1929 – June 7, 2010) was a prominent rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

, posek

Posek

Posek is the term in Jewish law for "decider"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive or in those situations where no halakhic precedent exists....

and spiritual leader. He served as the Sephardi

Sephardi Jews

Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...

Chief Rabbi

Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...

of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

from 1983 to 1993.

Biography

Eliyahu was born in the Old City of Jerusalem, to Rabbi Salman Eliyahu, a Jerusalem Kabbalist

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

from an Iraqi Jewish

History of the Jews in Iraq

The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....

family and his wife Mazal. Salman died when Eliyahu was a child.

In 1950–1951 Mordechay was among the leaders of Brit HaKanaim

Brit HaKanaim

Brit HaKanaim was a radical religious Jewish underground organisation which operated in Israel between 1950 and 1953, against the widespread trend of secularisation in the country. The group was made up of students at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem and had more than 35 members at its peak...

(Hebrew: בְּרִית הַקַנַאִים‎‎, lit. Covenant of the Zealots), a radical religious Jewish underground organisation which operated against the widespread trend of secularisation in the country. The underground burnt cars whose drivers drove on Shabbat

Shabbat

Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

, and butcher shops whose owners sold non-kosher meat. They plotted to throw a smoke bomb in the Knesset

Knesset

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

during a debate on drafting religious women to the IDF

Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

, and a member of the group was in the audience during the debate with a smoke bomb in his pocket, but did not have the opportunity to activate the bomb. On 14 May 1951 the group's members were arrested by the Shabak

Shabak

Sherut haBitachon haKlali , officially known by the acronym Shabak , officially known in English as Israel Security Agency , and commonly known in English as the Shin Bet , is Israel's internal security service. Its motto is "Magen VeLo Yera'e"...

. Mordechay was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment for his part in the group's deeds.

In 1960, Eliyahu became the youngest person ever elected as a religious judge (dayan) in Israel. He served as the Chief Rabbi of Beersheba

Beersheba

Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....

for four years, and was then elected to the Supreme Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem, a position he continued to hold during his term as Chief Rabbi of Israel and afterwards. He was the father of four children, one of whom, Shmuel Eliyahu, is the Chief Rabbi of Safed

Safed

Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...

.

He worked for the preservation of the Iraqi Jewish rite and the opinions of the Ben Ish Chai

Ben Ish Chai

Yosef Chaim or in Iraqi Hebrew Yoseph Ḥayyim was a leading hakham , authority on Jewish law and Master Kabbalist...

, and opposed the attempts of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Ovadia Yosef

Ovadia Yosef is the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, a recognised Talmudic scholar and foremost halakhic authority.He currently serves as the spiritual leader of the Shas political party in the Israeli parliament...

to impose a uniform "Israeli Sephardi" rite based on the Shulchan Aruch

Shulchan Aruch

The Shulchan Aruch also known as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most authoritative legal code of Judaism. It was authored in Safed, Israel, by Yosef Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later...

and his own halachic

Halakha

Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

opinions. He published a prayer book

Siddur

A siddur is a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers. This article discusses how some of these prayers evolved, and how the siddur, as it is known today has developed...

called Qol Eliyahu based on this stance.

Eliyahu was one of the spiritual leaders of the Religious Zionist

Religious Zionism

Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...

movement and was an outspoken opponent of the Gaza Disengagement of 2005. He was considered somewhat controversial for his decades-long support of what some characterize as the radical right of the Religious Zionist movement. Eliyahu was a friend of Rabbi Meir Kahane

Meir Kahane

Martin David Kahane , also known as Meir Kahane , was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset...

and his family. He officiated at the marriage of Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane

Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane

Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane was a rabbi and the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane.Born in New York City, he emigrated to Israel with his family at the age of four, in 1971...

and delivered the eulogy at Meir Kahane's funeral. He was a longtime supporter of Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Jay Pollard worked as a civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987....

and became his spiritual mentor while Pollard was in prison.

Eliyahu suffered from a heart condition. On August 24, 2009 he collapsed in his home and was rushed to the hospital while unconscious. He died on June 7, 2010 at Shaare Zedek Medical Center from complications related to his heart condition. An estimated 100,000 people attended his funeral in Jerusalem, which began at 10:00 PM on Monday, 7 June 2010. He was intered on Har HaMenuchot

Har HaMenuchot

Har HaMenuchot is the largest cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. It is located at the western edge of the city adjacent to the neighborhood of Givat Shaul, with commanding views of Mevaseret Zion to the north, Motza to the west, and Har Nof to the south.-History:...

Chief Rabbi

During Rabbi Eliyahu's term as Chief Rabbi between 1983 to 1993, one of his focuses was on attempting to reach out to secular Israeli Jews

Secular Jewish culture

Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews...

, giving them a better understanding of Jewish customs and their importance. He traveled extensively throughout Israel and the world, emphasizing the importance of Jewish education, Shabbat

Shabbat

observance, family purity

Niddah

Niddah is a Hebrew term describing a woman during menstruation, or a woman who has menstruated and not yet completed the associated requirement of immersion in a mikveh ....

, fighting assimilation

Cultural assimilation

Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

, and making aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

. Eliyahu showed a willingness to go to secular environments in order to connect with other Jews, occasionally lecturing in secular moshav

Moshav

Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...

im and kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

im.

Opinions

During the Gaza expulsion, Eliyahu made statements interpreted as forbidding Orthodox Jews from participating in or facilitating the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza. Eliyahu later said he did not mean for soldiers to engage in "active refusal."
Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed

Safed

, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers.

In January 2005, Eliyahu stated that the 2004 Tsunami

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...

was (pre-emptive) "divine punishment" for Asian governments supporting Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza expulsion plan", and "Hitnatkut", was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from...

plan.

In March 2006, three days before the 2006 Israeli legislative election, Eliyahu stated that it was forbidden to vote for any Israeli political party that had backed the disengagement, and stressed that anyone who voted for Kadima

Kadima

Kadima is a centrist and liberal political party in Israel. It was established on 24 November 2005 by moderates from Likud largely to support the issue of Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and was soon joined by like-minded Labor politicians...

was "assisting sinners". Eliyahu stressed the importance of voting for a party committed to religious education and yeshivas, but urged against voting for religious parties that had supported the disengagement, and called for members of the religious Shas

Shas

Shas is an ultra-orthodox religious political party in Israel, primarily representing Sephardic and Mizrahi Haredi Judaism.Shas was founded in 1984 by dissident members of the Ashkenazi dominated Agudat Israel, to represent the interests of religiously observant Sephardic and Mizrahi ...

party to repent for supporting the Oslo Accords

Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles , was an attempt to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict...

.

In May 2007, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister of Israel

Prime Minister of Israel

The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...

Ehud Olmert

Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....

which suggested 'that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings'. Also in 2007, in a radio interview given to haredi radio station "Kol Haemet" on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, when asked what was the sin of the six million who perished in the Holocaust, he replied: "Those people were innocent, but Reform started in Germany. Those reformers of religion started in Germany, and because it is said that the wrath of God does not distinguish between the righteous and the evil ones – this was done."
In 2008, at a service to remember the death of 8 Israeli students killed in an attack on their seminary, he said "Even when we seek revenge, it is important to make one thing clear – the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs. The Talmud states that if gentiles rob Israel of silver they will pay it back in gold, and all that is taken will be paid back in folds, but in cases like these there is nothing to pay back, since as I said – the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs".

External links

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