Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira (, ) also known as the Abir Yaakov and Abu Hasira (1806–1880), was a leading
Moroccan-Jewish rabbi
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
of the 19th century.
Biography
In 1879, Abuhatzeira left his native
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
and embarked on a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land
The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...
via Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. While passing through the Egyptian Nile Delta city of
Damanhour, he grew ill and died.
He was buried in Damanhour, where his tomb has become a site of pilgrimage to this day.
Pilgrimage
Every year on the 19th of
Tevet
Tevet (Hebrew: , ''Ṭevet''; ; from Akkadian ) is the fourth month of the civil year and the tenth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It follows Kislev and precedes Shevat. It is a month of 29 days. Tevet usually occurs ...
a ceremony is held at his tomb in Egypt, often attended by hundreds of devotees,
[ many travelling from Israel. The tomb is an official antiquity site protected by the government of Egypt. Some Egyptians have protested against permitting Israeli pilgrims to enter Egypt to make the annual pilgrimage to Rabbi Abuhatzeira's tomb. In 2012, the Egyptian foreign ministry told Israel that it would not be "appropriate" for Israeli pilgrims to make an annual visit to the tomb of Rabbi Abuhatzeira. Gamal Heshmat of the ]Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...
said that activists planned to stage sit-ins and other protests to block the route to pilgrims. Activists are against "normalization" of relations with Israel. An Egyptian court permanently banned a Jewish celebration that has taken place since the 1979 peace deal with Israel and asked the government to remove the tomb from a list of official shrines, judicial sources said on 29 December 2014. The court said its decision was due to "moral offenses" committed in previous years at the three-day festival celebrating the birth of Rabbi Jacob Abu Hasira. It did not elaborate on what the offenses were.
[Jerusalem Post Egyptian Court ban Jews from visiting Jewish Mystic's Grave. 12/29/14 http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Egyptian-court-bans-Jews-from-visiting-Jewish-mystics-grave-386059]
Descendants
He is the grandfather of Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, also known as the Baba Sali, a rabbi and kabbalist whose tomb in Netivot
Netivot () is a city located in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel, located 8 miles (13 kilometers) southeast of Sderot and 19 miles (31 kilometers) northwest of Beersheba. In , it had a population of . Currently seeing r ...
is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Israel.[
]
References
External links
Stories of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira
1806 births
1880 deaths
19th-century Moroccan rabbis
Yaakov
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Patriarchs (Bible), Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older frate ...
Egypt–Israel relations
Kabbalists
People from Tafilalt
Sephardi rabbis
{{Morocco-rabbi-stub
Burials at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Tiberias