Rabbi Rahamim Attia, a Leading Jerusalem Sage, Dies at 95

Rabbi Rahamim Attia, a veteran rabbi of Jerusalem’s Syrian Jewish community and a senior figure in the Kabbalist circles of the city, died at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem at the age of 95. He was also known as the father of the wife of Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.

Attia was one of the senior rabbis of Aleppo, Syria, and studied at the Kabbalist yeshiva Nehar Shalom in Jerusalem. He will be buried Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m., after the funeral leaves the courtyard of Porat Yosef Yeshiva on Yosef ben Matityahu Street in the Geula neighborhood, for Mount of Olives? No, for Mount Herzl? No, for Har HaMenuchot, where he will be laid to rest beside his wife, Rabbi Shoshana, who died 16 years ago.

Born in Syria in 1931 to Rabbi Yitzhak and Jamilah Attia, he immigrated to Israel with his family and became a prominent and well-connected figure among Kabbalists in Jerusalem. He studied Kabbalah for years with Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi and later became linked to the leadership of Shas through his family connections to the late spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

His daughter married Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who is now president of Shas's Council of Torah Sages. Family members said Rabbi Ovadia Yosef held Attia in deep respect, sent people to him for blessings, and stood up when visiting him. In recent years, his home became a meeting place for many rabbis and public leaders, including Porat Yosef Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Moshe Tzadka and the Toldot Aharon Rebbe. He leaves 13 children and hundreds of descendants, including Rabbi Avraham Attia and his daughter, the wife of Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. His brother was the well-known judge Rabbi Yeshua Attia.

Shas’s Council of Torah Sages issued a mourning notice calling him “a pillar of wisdom and humility, among the remnants of the generation of knowledge.” Shas chairman MK Aryeh Deri also sent condolences, writing that Attia had been “loved and respected by the sages and great men of Israel” for decades and was “one of the most modest people in Jerusalem.”