Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Yehuda Yeshua Tzadka – Rosh Yeshiva of Porat Yosef

Rabbi Yehuda Yeshua ben Shaul Tzadka was born in Jerusalem to Shaul Tzadka, a Jewish merchant from Baghdad who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine around 1900 together with his wife Simcha, a niece of the Ben Ish Chai.

Rabbi Tzadka's mother was a niece of the Ben Ish Chai.

The family lived in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood, and young Yehuda attended the Talmud Torah Bnei Tzion in the Bukharim quarter. After his bar mitzvah, he entered the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem, which had opened a year earlier.

After the passing of Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Shlomo Laniado, Tzadka became a student of the new Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Ezra Attia, with whom he continued to study for the next 45 years.

Tzadka was a diligent student who rose to the top of his class.

By day he studied at the yeshiva, and at night at the Beer Sheva synagogue in Beit Yisrael.

Every Friday night he studied at the Shoshanim L'David synagogue, where Sephardic talmidei chachamim would gather.

In 1937, Attia recommended Tzadka as a replacement for a senior Talmud teacher who could no longer continue teaching.

Tzadka's first class included Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul, Rabbi Yehuda Moallem, Rabbi Baruch Ben Chaim, and Rabbi Ezra Adess, all of whom went on to take leadership positions in the Sephardic Torah world.

Tzadka taught in the classic Sephardic style, placing special emphasis on the Talmudic commentaries of the Maharsha and the Maharam.

Like Attia, he also placed great emphasis on the study of mussar (ethical) texts such as the Ramchal's "Mesillat Yesharim." He distinguished himself as a teacher through his ability to adapt each lesson to the level of his students.

Tzadka was known for his love of Torah and its sages, as well as for his desire and readiness to fulfill mitzvot. He lived simply and encouraged his students to be content with a life free of luxury.

Although he was qualified to serve as a dayan and was asked to join a new regional Beit Din established by Rabbi Reuven Katz, the rabbi of Petach Tikva, Tzadka preferred to continue learning and teaching at Porat Yosef.

During the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, when the Jordanian army captured the Old City, Tzadka led groups of Porat Yosef students who studied in synagogues in the neighborhoods of Geula, Katamon, and the Bukharim quarter.

After the war, he traveled to England for four months to raise funds for the new yeshiva building, which was erected in the Geula neighborhood in the mid-1950s.

Beyond the walls of the yeshiva, Tzadka worked throughout Israel, urging Sephardic families to give their children a Torah education rather than send them to secular schools.

He spoke at rallies sponsored by the "Peylim" organization on behalf of Torah education for new immigrants, and made the rounds on school registration days, pleading with parents to enroll their children in Torah schools.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, he visited absorption camps housing hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Jews who had left or been expelled from Arab countries, urging parents not to send their children to secular schools and calling on existing communities to open Torah schools for the children of immigrants.

When Attia passed away in May 1970, the yeshiva's directors asked Tzadka to become the new Rosh Yeshiva. He agreed, but when he saw the new sign on his classroom door reading "Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka, Rosh Yeshiva," he insisted that it be removed and refused to be called by that title.