Salman Mutzafi
1900 CE–1974 CE · Modern · Baghdad
R. Salman Eliyahu Mutzafi (1900-1974) was one of the great Baghdadi-Jerusalem kabbalists of the 20th century and an outstanding disciple of R. Yehuda Fetaya. Born in Baghdad and orphaned young, he made aliyah in 1933 and joined the Beit El kabbalistic academy, where he became famed for his unbroken Lurianic kavvanot.
His Aviv homiletic commentary and his Si'ach Yitzchak prayer-book commentary remain widely used. Known for his ascetic life of fasting and prayer, he was a counselor to senior Sephardic poskim including R. Ovadia Yosef. His son R. Ben Zion Mutzafi (b. 1948) continues the lineage as a senior Jerusalem-Sephardic kabbalist.
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BaghdadIraq
What they did here
Born in Baghdad; orphaned young and educated by the Ben Ish Chai's circle.
Baghdad in this era
Baghdad in the modern era remained home to one of the Middle East's oldest and most culturally rich Jewish communities, even as the wider world convulsed with emancipation, nationalism, and catastrophe. Under Ottoman rule through the nineteenth century and then British mandate after World War I, Iraqi Jews—numbering around 150,000 by the twentieth century's mid-point—enjoyed relative security and prosperity, dominating trade and serving as merchants, money-changers, and professionals. The community maintained vibrant yeshivas where traditional Babylonian Jewish learning flourished, and Hebrew printing presses produced works that circulated throughout the Levantine world. Yet this stability proved fragile: growing Arab nationalism, the founding of Israel in 1948, and subsequent Arab-Israeli wars ignited violent upheaval. Massive Jewish emigration followed, with over 100,000 Iraqi Jews airlifted to Israel between 1950 and 1952 in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. The storied Jewish quarter, once filled with synagogues and study halls stretching back centuries, emptied within a generation. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, born in Baghdad in 1920, carried this heritage of Iraqi Jewry with him into his monumental career as a leading Sephardic halakhic authority and spiritual guide to hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide.
About Baghdad
Major Mizrahi center; home of Yosef Hayyim (Ben Ish Chai).
In Baghdad at the same time
Ben Ish Chai, Menahem Saleh Daniel, Ezra Dangoor, Shelomoh Tvena, Minhat Yehuda, Yaakov Chaim Sofer (Kaf HaChaim)
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Salman Mutzafi’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Ben Ish Chai, Menahem Saleh Daniel, Ezra Dangoor, Shelomoh Tvena, Minhat Yehuda, Zelig Reuven Bangis, Rav Kook, Moshe Mordechai Epstein, Imrei Emes, Yehuda Leib Chasman, Isser Zalman Meltzer, Yaakov Chaim Sofer (Kaf HaChaim), Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, Yechiel Michel Tukatchinsky, Yisrael Zev Mintzberg, Tzvi Pesach Frank, Yitzchak Isaac Sher, Ishaq Salih Mukammal
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Salman Mutzafi’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Jewish world
- Mordecai Kaplan· 1881 CE–1983 CE
- Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky· 1886 CE–1976 CE
- Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman· 1886 CE–1976 CE
- Yoel Teitelbaum (Divrei Yoel; founder of Satmar)· 1887 CE–1979 CE
- Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin· 1888 CE–1978 CE
- R. Yisrael Abuhatzeira· 1889 CE–1984 CE
- Tzvi Yehuda Kook (son of Rav Kook)· 1891 CE–1982 CE
- Yaakov Kamenetsky (Emet L'Yaakov)· 1891 CE–1986 CE
- R. Yosef Mashash· 1892 CE–1974 CE
- Yisrael Alter (Beis Yisrael)· 1895 CE–1977 CE
- Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Feldman· 1895 CE–1981 CE
- Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher· 1895 CE–1983 CE
- Moshe Feinstein· 1895 CE–1986 CE
- Gershom Gerhard Scholem (founder of academic Kabbalah studies)· 1897 CE–1982 CE
- Saul Lieberman· 1898 CE–1983 CE
- Rabbi Meir Chadash· 1898 CE–1989 CE
- Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky· 1899 CE–1985 CE
- Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Taubes· 1900 CE–1966 CE
- R. Yaakov Mutzafi· 1900 CE–1983 CE
- R. Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman (Ner Israel)· 1900 CE–1987 CE
- Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz· 1902 CE–1979 CE
- Rabbi Aryeh Leib Malin· 1906 CE–1962 CE
- Yitzchak Hutner (Pachad Yitzchak)· 1906 CE–1980 CE
- Abraham Joshua Heschel (20c.)· 1907 CE–1972 CE
Scientists
Luminaries & Explorers world
Buddhist world
Hindu world
Islamic world
Rulers world
- Zhou Enlai· 1898 CE–1976 CE
- Puyi (Xuantong Emperor)· 1906 CE–1967 CE
- Jomo Kenyatta· 1894 CE–1978 CE
- Sukarno· 1901 CE–1970 CE
- Mao Zedong· 1893 CE–1976 CE
- John F. Kennedy· 1917 CE–1963 CE
- Haile Selassie I· 1892 CE–1975 CE
- Francisco Franco· 1892 CE–1975 CE
- Lyndon B. Johnson· 1908 CE–1973 CE
- Kwame Nkrumah· 1909 CE–1972 CE
- Edward VIII· 1894 CE–1972 CE
- Nikita Khrushchev· 1894 CE–1971 CE
- Chiang Kai-shek· 1887 CE–1975 CE
- Aung San· 1915 CE–1947 CE
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.