Yitzhak Kaduri

Yitzhak Kaduri (Hebrew: יצחק כדורי, Arabic: إسحاق الخضوري), also spelled Kadouri, Kadourie, Kedourie (c. 1898 – January 28, 2006), was a Haredi rabbi and kabbalist. He taught and practiced the kavanot of the Rashash. His amulets were distributed to voters before the Israeli election in May 1996, in exchange for their votes for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Shas party. During his lifetime he published no religious articles or books.

At the time of his death, estimates of his age ranged from 103 to 108, and his birth year is still disputed. His funeral, held in Jerusalem, drew over 200,000 followers.

Kaduri was born in Baghdad, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. His father, Rabbi Kadhuri Diba ben Aziza, was a spice trader. Kaduri excelled in his studies and began learning Kabbalah while still in his teens. He was a child student of Rabbi Yosef Hayyim and studied at the Zilka Yeshivah in Baghdad. He moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1923 and there changed his name from Diba to Kaduri to honor his father whom he had left in Baghdad.

He went to study at the Shoshanim LeDavid Yeshiva for kabbalists from Iraq. There he learned from the leading kabbalists of the time, including Rabbi Yehuda Ftaya, author of Beit Lechem Yehudah, and Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer, author of Kaf Hachaim. He later immersed himself in regular Talmudic study and rabbinical law in the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Old City, where he also studied Kabbalah with the Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Ezra Attiya, Rabbi Saliman Eliyahu (father of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu), and other learned rabbis.

In 1934, Rabbi Kaduri and his family moved to the Old City, where the Porat Yosef Yeshivah gave him an apartment nearby with a job of binding the yeshivah's books and copying over rare manuscripts in the yeshivah's library. The books remained in the yeshivah's library, while the copies of manuscripts were stored in Rabbi Kaduri's personal library. Before binding each book, he would study it intently, committing it to memory. He was reputed to have photographic memory and also mastered the Talmud by heart, including the adjoining Rashi and Tosafot commentaries.^{[citation needed]}

During the period of Arab-Israeli friction that led up to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Porat Yosef Yeshivah was virtually turned into a fortress against frequent flashes of violence. When the Jewish quarter of the Old City fell to the invading Jordanian Army, the Jordanians set fire to the yeshivah and all surrounding houses, destroying all the books and manuscripts that Rabbi Kaduri could not smuggle to Beit El Yeshiva (Yeshivat HaMekubalim) in Jerusalem. He knew all the writings of Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, the founder of modern Kabbalah by heart. After the passing of the leading kabbalist, Rabbi Efraim Hakohen, in 1989, the remaining kabbalists appointed Rabbi Kaduri as their head.^{[citation needed]}

Rabbi Kaduri did not publish any of the works that he authored on Kabbalah; he allowed only students of Kabbalah to study them. He did publish some articles criticizing those who engage in "practical Kabbalah", the popular dissemination of advice or amulets, often for a price.^{[citation needed]} Kadouri said "It is forbidden to teach a non-Jew Kabbalah, not even Talmud, not even simple Torah;" perhaps referring to pop celebrity Madonna's publicised interest in Kabbalah; he also said that women (even Jewish) are not allowed to study Kabbalah.

Over the years, thousands of people (mainly but not exclusively Sephardi Jews) would come to seek his advice, blessings and amulets which he would create specifically for the individual in need. He had learned the Kabbalistic secrets of the amulets from his teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah. Many people directly attributed personal miracles to receiving a blessing from Rabbi Kaduri, such as recovery from severe illnesses and diseases, children born to couples with fertility problems, finding a spouse, and economic blessings.^{[original research?]}