Hadayah, Ovadiah

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HADAYAH, OVADIAH

HADAYAH, OVADIAH (1893–1969), rabbi. Hadayah was born in *Aleppo, Syria. In 1898 he was brought to Ereẓ Israel and settled in Jerusalem. He studied in Sephardi schools and yeshivot, including Yeshivat Porat Yosef, where from 1923 he taught both Talmud and Kabbalah. He was a member of the bet din of the Sephardi community of Jerusalem. From 1939 to 1950 he was chief rabbi of the Sephardi community in Petaḥ Tikvah, and from 1951 chairman of the rabbinical high court of appeals and a member of the chief rabbinate council. He revived the kabbalist yeshivah Kehal Ḥasidim Bet El in Jerusalem, previously housed in the Old City but destroyed in 1948 during the War of Independence. Attached to the yeshivah was a department for the training of rabbis, His works include 'Eved ha-Melekh on Maimonides; 'Avda de-Rabbanan, on the Mishnah and Talmud; and the responsa Va-Yikaḥ Ovadyahu, Yisrael 'Avdi, and De'ah ve-Haskel. He was awarded the Israel Prize for Rabbinical Literature in 1968.

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