Saadia Kobashi

Saadia Kobashi (; , 1902–24 January 1990) was a leader of the Yemenite Jewish community in Israel, and one of the signatories of the country's declaration of independence.

Biography

Saadia Qobshi was born in the village of Shahel in the Al-Sharaf region of Yemen on a Wednesday in Sivan 1902. At the age of four, his family relocated to the village of Al-Mahhabsha, in the same region. His father, Yahya, was a prominent leader in the local Jewish community and worked as a butcher and mohel. His mother passed away when he was a child, prior to the family's immigration to the Land of Israel.
During Passover, several families from the village decided to immigrate to the Land of Israel. On the day of Shavuot in 1909, the caravan set out on its journey, traveling on donkeys and camels under the guidance of a Muslim escort. The group camped in the town of Midi, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, where the local Muslim residents provided for their needs until they secured passage on a sailing ship.
Upon arriving in Mitsiwa, on the western shore of the Red Sea, they boarded a steamer to Port Said and from there continued to Jaffa, where they arrived on the 17th of Tammuz. Upon disembarkation, the men were suspected of espionage by the Ottoman authorities and were subsequently imprisoned, while the women and children were sent to the Machane Yosef neighborhood.

At that time, the Qobshi family comprised eight members; Saadia had three brothers and three sisters. Later, his father remarried, and Saadia lived with them in a rented room in the Nahalat Zvi neighborhood. A member of the Jewish National Council and Moetzet HaAm on behalf of the Yemenite Association, he signed the declaration of independence in 1948 as ''S. Kobashi'', adding ''HaLevi'' at the end (referring to the tribe of Levi).For this reason we congregated
Iton Tel Aviv, 23 April 2004 After independence, he moved to Tel Aviv and was appointed supervisor of the Religious-Zionist education system. He became headmaster of a religious-Zionist school in Rosh HaAyin in 1949, where today a street is named after him.

References

1904 births
20th-century Yemenite Jews
Members of the Assembly of Representatives (Mandatory Palestine)
Signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence
Israeli educators
1990 deaths
Jewish National Council members
Yemenite Association politicians
Immigrants to Ottoman Palestine
Yemeni emigrants
Israeli people of Yemeni-Jewish descent
Burials at Har HaMenuchot
Immigrants of the Second Aliyah

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