Ovadia Yosef

Ovadia Yosef was a prominent rabbi, posek, and politician who lived in Baghdad and Jerusalem. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1920, to a family of sayyids who traced their lineage to Imam al-Sajjad (a). He immigrated to Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, with his family in 1924. He studied in the Porat Yosef Yeshiva, and became a renowned halachic authority, especially for the Sephardi and Mizrahi communities. He served as the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, and was the founder and long-time spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. He was known for his lenient and innovative legal rulings, as well as his involvement in Israeli politics. He also made some controversial statements about Jews, Arabs, Americans, and others. He authored many books and commentaries on the Torah and the Shulchan Aruch, such as Yabia Omer, Yechaveh Da'at, and Chazon Ovadia. He died in 2013, and was mourned by hundreds of thousands of people.