Ben Zion Abba Shaul (Hebrew: בן-ציון אבא-שאול‎; 31 July 1924 – 13 July 1998; on the Hebrew calendar: 29 Tammuz 5684 – 19 Tammuz 5758) (first name also spelled Ben Sion) was one of the leading Sephardic rabbis, Torah scholars and halakhic arbiters of his day, and the rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem for the last 15 years of his life.

Eliyahu served as gabbai (caretaker and fundraiser) for the Ohel Rachel synagogue in the Bukharim Quarter of Jerusalem for 50 years.

[2] The family kept many halakhic stringencies, including grinding and baking their own matzot before Passover and avoiding all processed foods — even sugar — during the holiday itself.

[3] At the age of 11, Abba Shaul entered Porat Yosef, the pre-eminent Sephardic yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Later, Abba Shaul advanced to the highest shiur, taught by the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Ezra Attiya, with whom he developed a close bond.

Abba Shaul abided by his rosh yeshiva's opinions on all matters and displayed the same approach to learning and to issuing halakhic directives as his mentor.

He learned and reviewed each subject dozens of times until he knew most of Shas and poskim (halakhic commentaries) by heart.

Attiya had heard that in another yeshiva which this philanthropist had visited, only one boy was able to answer the rabbi's question, and only after 20 minutes.

Silver asked Abba Shaul a difficult question in the obscure Talmudic order of Tohorot (laws of ritual purity).

After ten miscarriages, Abba Shaul visited the Chazon Ish and the Belzer Rebbe, refusing to leave until each gave him a blessing for a child.

In time, Attiya asked him to serve as rosh yeshiva, but he refused to accept that position as long as his first teacher, Tzadka, was still alive.

[2] After Tzadka's death in 1983, Abba Shaul acceded to the position of rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef.

For four hours each morning, he lectured to students in the yeshiva; in the afternoons, he taught the laws of Shulchan Aruch to dayanim (rabbinical judges).

[3] He also penned thousands of halakhic responsa in response to queries from the public at large, covering a broad range of topics.

Together with Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka, he drafted a halakhic ruling which stated that mandatory army service for girls was in the category of yehareg ve'al yaavor ("be killed and do not transgress").

In 1983, while delivering a eulogy at the funeral of Rabbi Yaakov Mutzafi, he suddenly felt ill and suffered a stroke a short while later.