[3] The family lived in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, and young Yehuda attended Talmud Torah Bnei Tzion in the Bukharim Quarter.

[1] Although he was qualified to serve as a dayan (religious judge), and was asked to join a new regional beth din founded by Rabbi Reuven Katz, Rav of Petah Tikva, Tzadka preferred to keep learning and teaching in Porat Yosef.

[1][2] During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when the Jordanian army captured the Old City, Tzadka supervised groups of Porat Yosef students learning in synagogues in the neighborhoods of Geula, Katamon, and the Bukharim Quarter.

[2] After the war, he traveled to England for four months to raise money on behalf of a new yeshiva building, which was erected in the Geula neighborhood in the mid-1950s.

[3] Beyond the walls of the yeshiva, Tzadka was active throughout Israel, encouraging Sephardi families to give their children a Torah education rather than send them to secular schools.

He agreed, but when he saw a new sign on the door of his classroom: "Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka, Rosh Yeshiva", he insisted that it be taken down and refused to be called by that title.

[3] During one hospitalization, he was visited by Rabbi Elazar Shach, who found him lying in a bed in the intensive-care unit with a sefer, engrossed in Torah study.