Ezra Attiya

Ezra Attiya (Hebrew: עזרא עטייה; Arabic: عزرا عطية; 31 January 1885 – 25 May 1970)[1] was one of the greatest teachers of Torah in the Sephardic Jewish world during the 20th century.

[2] Attiya was born on 31 January 1885 (Tu Bishvat 5645 on the Jewish calendar) in Aleppo, Syria, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

His father, a respected Aleppo melamed (teacher),[1] was a direct descendant of Shem Tov Attiya, a disciple of Joseph Caro, author of the Shulchan Aruch.

While his mother hired herself out for domestic work in the homes of wealthy people, young Ezra decided to devote his life to Torah study.

He went to learn, pray, and sleep on a bench in a small beth midrash in the Bukharim neighborhood of the New City called Shoshanim LeDavid, covering vast amounts of the Talmud with commentaries and poskim (halakhic decisors).

[1] At the beginning of World War I, there was a general mobilization for the Turkish army and all able-bodied men were snatched off the streets.

Two of the leading Sephardic sages of Jerusalem, Chaim Shaul Dweck Hakohen and Avraham Ades, smuggled Attiya to Egypt using a forged Russian passport, which at that time did not require a photograph.

With Nachum's backing, Attiya opened a yeshiva named Ahavah VeAchvah in the basement of the Cairo rabbinate.

Attiya did everything he could to enable boys to continue learning into their teens, many times offering to underwrite the costs of their education.

Attiya went to Ben Zion Chazan, the yeshiva's founder and secretary, and offered to reduce his own salary to accommodate the boy.

Attiya's efforts to convince the father of the importance of Torah learning fell on deaf ears.

He tested the younger boys every two to three months, gave a daily shiur to the older boys, taught a nightly shiur to the married kollel students, and gave a weekly musar (ethics) lecture — often lasting up to two hours — to the entire yeshiva.

He always carried a copy of the musar classic Chovot ha-Levavot ("Duties of the Heart") on his person, and strongly advised his students to do the same.

After visiting with him, the Chazon Ish expressed the opinion, "The rosh yeshivah possesses the power of reasoning like one of the Rishonim".

One of his leading students, Ovadia Yosef, testified at Attiya's funeral that his teacher knew the entire Choshen Mishpat (the section of the Shulchan Aruch dealing with monetary laws) by heart.

These students included: Ovadia Yosef and Mordechai Eliyahu, future Sephardic Chief Rabbis of Israel; Yitzchak Kaduri, renowned kabbalist; Yehuda Tzadka, who succeeded him as rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef; Ben Zion Abba Shaul; Baruch Ben Haim, who became a leader of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York; Eliyahu Ben Haim, rabbi of the Mashadi community in Great Neck, New York; and Zion Levy, Chief Rabbi of Panama.