Yosef Qafih - Biography

Biography

Qafiḥ was born in (27 November 1917) in Sana’a in Yemen . His father was Rabbi David Qafiḥ. He died when his son was one year old. At the age of five Rabbi Yosef lost his mother, and was raised by and learned Torah with his grandfather Rabbi Yiḥyah Qafiḥ. When Yosef was 14 his grandfather died and he inherited his position as rabbinic authority and teacher of the Sana’a community. In his early years he worked as a silversmith.

In 1943 he immigrated to Palestine, studied at the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva and qualified as a dayan at the Harry Fischel Institute. In 1950 he was appointed as a dayan in the Jerusalem district court, and later was appointed as a dayan at the Supreme Rabbinical Court. He was a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel, and presided over the Yemenite community in Jerusalem, as well as spreading Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook's teachings among the Israeli Sephardi populace. He died on 21 July 2000 at the age of 82.

Read more about this topic:  Yosef Qafih

Famous quotes containing the word biography:

    The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.
    James Boswell (1740–95)

    A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.
    André Maurois (1885–1967)