Ezra Attiya

Ezra Attiya (; ; 31 January 1885 – 25 May 1970)

Early life 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 parents, Yitzchak and Leah, had lost several children in infancy, and before his birth they traveled to the gravesite of the Jewish prophet Ezra to pray that if the child they were expecting was a boy, they would name him Ezra and see that he dedicated himself to a life of Torah. He had one brother, Eliyahu. His father was an Aleppo melamed (teacher).

When Attiya was 16 years old his family immigrated to Jerusalem's Old City, to which a large number of rabbis from Aleppo had immigrated. Soon after his father died, leaving an impoverished widow and two orphans. While his mother hired herself out for domestic work in the homes of wealthy people, young Ezra decided to devote his life to Jewish 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). As money was scarce in his household, he sustained himself with a nightly meal of dry pita seasoned with salt. In his old age, he told his students, "When I was young, I studied Torah through hardship. If we were truly fortunate, my mother and I had a whole pita to share. On rare occasions we also had an egg, which we divided in half. But the hunger did not bother me in the least."

In 1909, Attiya married Bolissa Salem, daughter of Avraham Salem, a kabbalist. In 1911 their first son was born, but died in infancy. After World War I ended his wife joined him. They and their two children returned to Jerusalem in 1922. Following the sudden death of the rosh yeshiva, Shlomo Laniado, in 1925, Attiya was named his successor. He served as rosh yeshiva for 45 years. This time, however, the main yeshiva building in the Old City was burned to the ground by Jordanian troops, and thousands of Attiya's unpublished writings were burned along with it. He refused to rewrite them, feeling that they were not meant for publication. Instead, his students would be his lifetime achievement.

In the mid-1950s, Porat Yosef Yeshiva and the Gerrer community jointly purchased a plot of land in the Geula neighborhood, where the yeshiva and the Ger beis medrash were built side by side.

Attiya was a dayan (rabbinical judge) on the Sephardic beit din of Jerusalem.

Final years

LHe died in Jerusalem on the morning of 25 May 1970 (19 Iyar 5730) and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.

He was succeeded as rosh yeshiva by Yehuda Tzadka, who had studied under him.