Ovadia Hedaya was a leading Israeli rabbi.

Biography

Rabbi Hadaya was born in 1889 in the Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 (then part of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

), the son of rabbi Shalom Hedaya

Shalom Hedaya

Shalom Hedaya , the son of Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Hedaya and Sabtiah Shamah, was orphaned at an early age and was very poor. He was so poor he had no one to take care of him and he considered leaving the path of Torah in order to earn a living...

. In 1895, he and his family left Aleppo for Jerusalem, which was also then under Ottoman rule.

In 1945, he succeded his father as head of the Yeshivat

Yeshiva

Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

 haMekubalim (Kabbalists Yeshiva) at Beit El Synagogue

Beit El Synagogue

The Beit El Synagogue , has been the center of kabbalistic study in Jerusalem for over 250 years.-History of the Yeshivat HaMekubalim:The yeshiva was founded in 1737 by Rabbi Gedaliah Hayon, originally from...

, the center of kabbalistic

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...

 study in Jerusalem.

Awards and honours

• In 1968, Rabbi Hedaya was awarded the Israel Prize
  Israel Prize
  The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
  
  , in Rabbinical literature.