Jerusalem's Sephardic Chief Rabbi and Head of the city's Rabbinical Courts, Rabbi Shalom Mashash, passed away yesterday morning in Jerusalem at the age of 90. His funeral departed this afternoon from Yeshivat Porat Yosef to the Har HaMenuchot cemetery, accompanied by many thousands of people.
Rabbi Mashash served as Jerusalem's Chief Rabbi for 25 years. He was a budding Torah prodigy at a very young age while growing up in Morocco, and was a leading student of Morocco’s Chief Rabbi Yehoshua Berdugo. He was appointed Chief Rabbi of Casablanca in the year 1949, and later served as Chief Rabbi of Morocco.
"He was a tremendous genius," Rabbi Eliyahu Aberjil, one of the late Rabbi Mashash's main students, told Arutz-7 today. "He wrote many books, edited many others, and has many others in manuscript form." The Rabbi wrote his first significant scholarly work, “Mizrach Shemesh” at age 17, and his last work, “V'Cham HaShemesh” on the Five Books of the Torah, was published just this past week.
In 1978, then-Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef asked Rabbi Mashash to come to Jerusalem and become its chief Sephardic rabbinic authority. When he departed for Israel, Rabbi Mashash was escorted to the airport by Morocco's King Hassan himself, who requested that the Rabbi bless him one last time before his departure, and that it be his last act on Moroccan soil.
The Rabbi’s son, Rabbi David Mashash, is currently the Chief Rabbi of Paris.
Rav Mashash is said to have been clear of mind up to his last moments. "I was with him on Thursday night," Rabbi Aberjil said, "discussing with him a serious matter of Jewish Law that had come up; he studied it til late in the night and agreed to sign the ruling that I had issued. He was very exact in preserving Sephardic customs… He would work full days and nights to try to find a Halakhic [Jewish legal] way to solve the problem of an agunah or a psul-chitun [people who are Halakhically forbidden from marrying], saying that he would do this for his sister, so why not for someone else? ... It's a tremendous loss; there can be no replacement for him."
Rabbi Mashash served as Jerusalem's Chief Rabbi for 25 years. He was a budding Torah prodigy at a very young age while growing up in Morocco, and was a leading student of Morocco’s Chief Rabbi Yehoshua Berdugo. He was appointed Chief Rabbi of Casablanca in the year 1949, and later served as Chief Rabbi of Morocco.
"He was a tremendous genius," Rabbi Eliyahu Aberjil, one of the late Rabbi Mashash's main students, told Arutz-7 today. "He wrote many books, edited many others, and has many others in manuscript form." The Rabbi wrote his first significant scholarly work, “Mizrach Shemesh” at age 17, and his last work, “V'Cham HaShemesh” on the Five Books of the Torah, was published just this past week.
In 1978, then-Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef asked Rabbi Mashash to come to Jerusalem and become its chief Sephardic rabbinic authority. When he departed for Israel, Rabbi Mashash was escorted to the airport by Morocco's King Hassan himself, who requested that the Rabbi bless him one last time before his departure, and that it be his last act on Moroccan soil.
The Rabbi’s son, Rabbi David Mashash, is currently the Chief Rabbi of Paris.
Rav Mashash is said to have been clear of mind up to his last moments. "I was with him on Thursday night," Rabbi Aberjil said, "discussing with him a serious matter of Jewish Law that had come up; he studied it til late in the night and agreed to sign the ruling that I had issued. He was very exact in preserving Sephardic customs… He would work full days and nights to try to find a Halakhic [Jewish legal] way to solve the problem of an agunah or a psul-chitun [people who are Halakhically forbidden from marrying], saying that he would do this for his sister, so why not for someone else? ... It's a tremendous loss; there can be no replacement for him."