יחיא יצחק הלוי

Rav Yichya Yitzchak Halevi (c. 5627/1867–11 Sivan 5692/1932) was the chief rabbi and av beit din of Yemen for some thirty years — the last great head of the rabbinic court of Sanaa, and the shepherd of Yemenite Jewry through the storms of its final generations in that land. Born in Sanaa to one of its distinguished families, he learned under his grandfather, the rav and mekubal Shalom Mansura — qualified in shechitah at eleven — and afterward among the chachamim of the famed Maharitz shul, and in the beit medrash of Rav Chaim Korach. Chosen chief rabbi of Sanaa, he served in effect as rav of all the kehillot of Yemen from 5665/1905 until his passing.

His leadership was tireless and nearly unpaid. He sent examiners across Yemen to test its rabbanim and shochtim; fought the cruel “orphans’ decree” that tore Jewish orphans to forced conversion; redeemed Jewish lands from the Muslim waqf; and labored for aliyah permits to Eretz Yisrael, for which his own soul longed all his days. The Imam himself esteemed him and took his counsel; when he was once imprisoned for “overstepping the qadi’s authority,” the outcry of the community freed him. His own beit medrash, al-Madrash, he opened before all — at two after midnight he was first at the gates, and talmidim learned four to a Gemara by kerosene light: Bavli, Yerushalmi and the Rambam, toward practical psak. His son, Rav Shalom Yitzchak Halevi, later chief rav of the Yemenite kehillah in Tel Aviv, was among his talmidim.

When the great machloket over the Zohar broke out in 5674/1914 and the Dor Deah movement arose against the kabbalah, Rav Yichya Yitzchak — though personally reserved toward the hidden wisdom — stood at the head of the mesorah’s defenders, while keeping his personal respect for his disputant and continuing to lead the community beside him; when the matter was finally put to the community in 5680, the overwhelming majority stood with him. He held the unity of Yemen’s Jewry together with both hands until his passing on 11 Sivan 5692 (1932).