(1920- ). Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and founder of the Shas movement. Born in Baghdad, he was brought to Palestine by his parents at an early age and educated in Jerusalem. In the late 1940s he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Cairo and in 1966 he became Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. In 1973-1983 he served as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel (Rishon Le-Tsiyyon) and President of the Supreme Rabbinical Court. Before the 1984 general elections, with the encouragement of Lithuanian leader Eleazar Menahem Shach, he founded Shas as an ultra-Orthodox Sephardi political party, gaining four seats in the Knesset. The movement, seeking to right the wrong of Sephardi underrepresentation in Israel's national life and fueled by the ethnic assertiveness that had been evolving since Menahem Begin's upset victory in the 1977 elections, founded its own El ha-Ma'ayan school system and grew steadily as a political force, with 17 seats in the 1999 elections, making it the country's third largest party.
Politically, Yosef supported the peace process and permitted the party to join the Rabin government in 1992, exacerbating the rift that had developed with R. Shach. However, he was caustically outspoken in his attacks on Israel's secular institutions, particularly its legal system, and on secular culture in general. Known for his erudition and extraordinary memory, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Rabbinical Literature in 1970 for his halakhic works.
