Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of Shas’s spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has been hospitalized in serious condition at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Yosef, who has made his own name as a Torah scholar and religious leader, has been suffering from cancer for about a year and a half, and has been hospitalized several times in recent months.
Due to his serious condition, a prayer rally for Rabbi Yaakov Yosef will be held on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the gravesite of the Hida, the 18th-century scholar Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, in the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem.
His son, Yonatan Yosef, told Arutz Sheva on Monday evening that the deterioration in his father’s condition began last Thursday.
"Last Thursday, my father returned after giving his regular Torah lessons and he felt unwell," he said. "Following the doctor's advice, he was rushed to hospital where he remains to this day and his condition is not good.”
Yonatan Yosef added that his father is fully conscious and "continues to pray and put on tefillin. But the situation is not good and we are in need of Divine Mercy so that he can leave the hospital as soon as possible."
He asked the public to pray for his father, whose full Hebrew name is Rabbi Yaakov Chai Ben Margalit.