Minchat Yehuda
Jerusalem · 1933
יפ
Minhat Yehuda
Minhat Yehuda
1859 CE–1942 CE · Modern · Baghdad
R. Yehuda Fetaya (1859-1942) was the leading Baghdadi-Jerusalem kabbalist of the early 20th century — disciple of the Ben Ish Chai and a key transmitter of Iraqi Lurianic Kabbalah to the Land of Israel. Born in Baghdad, he served as a dayan and kabbalist there before making aliyah in 1933 and joining the Beit El kabbalistic yeshiva in Jerusalem.
His Minhat Yehuda is a major kabbalistic-homiletic commentary on the Torah; his Beit Lechem Yehuda is an authoritative commentary on the Arizal's Etz Chaim (pure Lurianic Kabbalah). His Ruchot Mesaprot — a collection of dialogues with spirits dictated by him to a scribe — is the best-known modern Sephardic dybbuk narrative, equally controversial and beloved.
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Stop 1 of 21859–1933Born, Dayan, Kabbalist
BaghdadIraq
What they did here
Born in Baghdad; studied under R. Abdallah Somekh and was a junior colleague of the Ben Ish Chai. Served as a dayan and kabbalist in Baghdad for forty years before making aliyah.
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
Zivchei Tzedek, Ben Ish Chai, Yaakov Chaim Sofer (Kaf HaChaim), Yitzhak Kaduri, Salman Mutzafi, Yaakov Mutzafi
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Minhat Yehuda’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Zivchei Tzedek, Ben Ish Chai, 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, Martin Buber, Jacob Nachum Epstein, Mishpetei Uziel, Zalman Sorotzkin, Yaakov Moshe Charlap
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Minhat Yehuda’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.