Ovadiah Yosef

Ovadiah Yosef was the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983 and the greatest halachic authority for Sephardic Jewry in the modern era. He was born in Baghdad and made aliyah to Jerusalem with his family at the age of four. In 1950 he was appointed dayan to the rabbinical court of Petach Tikva, where he issued the first of many bold and innovative rulings that marked his career. In 1984 he became a notable figure in Israeli politics by founding the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas, serving as its spiritual leader until his death in 2013.