Rishon LeTzion (2003-2013)
1948 CE · Modern · Casablanca
R. Shlomo Moshe Amar (b. 1948) led Israel's Sephardi Jews as their Chief Rabbi (the office known as Rishon LeTzion) from 2003 to 2013, and has served as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem since 2014. Born in Casablanca to a Moroccan-rabbinic family and brought to Israel as a teenager, he studied in the Sephardic yeshiva network and rose to become a senior religious-court judge (dayan) in the late 20th century.
His written legal rulings, collected as the multi-volume Shma Shlomo responsa, are widely cited. He is especially known for his decisions on agunot (women trapped in marriages by husbands who refuse a divorce), on conversion, and on preserving Sephardic custom (minhag). A close protégé of R. Ovadia Yosef and one of his senior students, R. Amar carries forward Ovadia's school of thought into the next generation.
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CasablancaקזבלנקהMorocco — Atlantic metropolis
What they did here
Born in Casablanca to the Moroccan-rabbinic Amar family.
About Casablanca
Modern Casablanca's Jewish community swelled from a few hundred in 1900 to over 80,000 by 1950 — Morocco's largest. R. Shalom Mashash served as chief rabbi here before being called to Jerusalem in 1978.
In Casablanca at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Rishon LeTzion (2003-2013)’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Yisrael Zev Mintzberg, Martin Buber, Dov Berish Weidenfeld, Zalman Sorotzkin, Aryeh Levin, Ezra Attia, Yechezkel Abramsky, Isser Yehuda Unterman, Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Yehezkel Kaufmann, Yechezkel Sarna, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Menachem Mendel Kasher, Yisrael Alter, Gershom Scholem, Saul Lieberman, Meir Chadash, Yitzhak Kaduri
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Rishon LeTzion (2003-2013)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Christian world
Hindu world
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.