Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Born in Baghdad and raised in Jerusalem, Ovadia Yosef becomes the foremost Sephardic halakhist of the twentieth century, with an encyclopedic command of sources deployed in the service of leniency where possible. He campaigns to restore Sephardic legal autonomy under the slogan "restore the crown to its former glory," rejecting the assumption that Ashkenazi rulings are the default. Among his most consequential decisions are permitting the remarriage of widows of soldiers missing after the Yom Kippur War and affirming the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews, which opened the way to their immigration. As founder of Shas he transforms Mizrahi religious identity into a durable political force and permanently alters the Israeli electoral map.