Ezra Atja

Esra Atja ( Hebrew עזרא עטייה, Arabic عزرا عطية; born in Aleppo in 1881 or 1885 ; died May 25, 1970 in Jerusalem ) was an Israeli ultra-Orthodox rabbi. For many decades he was the head of the yeshiva Porat Josef, located directly next to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and is considered one of the most important Sephardic Torah scholars of the 20th century. His most famous students include Ovadia Josef , Mordechai Elijahu , Ben Zion Abba Shaul and Jitzchak Kadouri .

Life

Born in Aleppo, he moved with his parents and brothers to Eretz Israel in 1905 , where they settled in Jerusalem and their father soon died. The family initially lived in great poverty.

Ezra Atja learned in the yeshivat Ohel Mo'ed founded by Rav Ezra Harari-Raful, where Rav Avraham Adess especially took care of him.

After the outbreak of World War I , Esra Atja fled to Egypt, after initially living in hiding for a while, to avoid the danger of being drafted into the Turkish military. In Cairo he founded a yeshiva for young students under the name "Ahawa We'achwa" ("love and brotherhood") and was very successful with it. He also served as a rabbinical judge (dayan) in the city's Beth Din .

In 1919, when the war ended and Palestine became a British Mandate , Raw Esra returned to Jerusalem with other refugees and continued to study at the Yeshiva Ohel Mo'ed until 1923, when this institution was taken over by the Yeshiva Porat Josef.

The head of Porat Josef was Schlomo Laniado until his death in 1929. Rav Esra Atja succeeded him in office and directed the yeshiva until his own death in 1970.

He was an extraordinary Torah figure and raised the Sephardic community to a high level. He was known everywhere for the way he set up his shiurim . In addition to his students, people from all over Jerusalem regularly followed his lectures, which he designed in a question-and-answer style.

Some of his works were destroyed during the Jordanian conquest of East Jerusalem in the Palestine War when the Jordanians destroyed the yeshiva.

At his funeral, numerous great Torah greats paid tribute to Esra Atja's achievements and thousands accompanied him to his final resting place.

literature

LM Reisman: Rabbi Ezra Attia . Builder of Torah, in: Nisson Wolpin (ed.): The Torah Profile . A treasury of biographical sketches, Mesorah Publications, Brooklyn, New York 1998, pp. 92-103.

Individual evidence

↑ The information differs, cf. z. B. Dovid Rossoff: Where heaven touches earth , Jewish life in Jerusalem from Medieval times to the present, Feldheim, Jerusalem 2001, p. 45; David Silber: Noble lives, noble deeds . Captivating stories and biographical profiles of spiritual giants, Volume 3, Mesorah, Brooklyn, NY 2002, p. 154 (1881) or Zechariah Fendel: From dusk to dawn . The 20th century, Hashkafah, New York 2002, p. 342 (1885).

personal data
SURNAME	Atja, Ezra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	عزرا عطية (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Israeli ultra-orthodox rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH	1881 or 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aleppo
DATE OF DEATH	May 25, 1970
Place of death	Jerusalem

[1] The information differs, cf. z. B. Dovid Rossoff: Where heaven touches earth , Jewish life in Jerusalem from Medieval times to the present, Feldheim, Jerusalem 2001, p. 45; David Silber: Noble lives, noble deeds . Captivating stories and biographical profiles of spiritual giants, Volume 3, Mesorah, Brooklyn, NY 2002, p. 154 (1881) or Zechariah Fendel: From dusk to dawn . The 20th century, Hashkafah, New York 2002, p. 342 (1885).