Yosef, Ovadiah (1920–)
YOSEF, OVADIAH (1920–)
Israeli religious and political leader. Born in Baghdad, Ovadiah Yosef lived in Mandatory Palestine from childhood and became a rabbi by the time he was twenty years old. Although he was deputy chief rabbi of Cairo in 1948, he returned to Israel in 1950 to become a religious judge. Chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, he formed the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic SHAS Party in 1983 with other former members of the Ashkenazi-dominated Agudat Israel Party. In 2003 SHAS won eleven Knesset seats (8.2 percent of the vote). Yosef continues to be the ruling force behind the SHAS Party.
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Born in August 1923 (Vishneva, Poland)
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Yosef, Ovadiah (1920–)