Sadqa Hussein was a Sephardi dayan, mohel, and spiritual leader to the Iraqi Jewish community in Iraq and Israel.
20 Facts About Sadqa Hussein
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Sadqa Hussein taught thousands of students in Baghdad, and led the Iraqi expatriate community in Jerusalem.
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Sadqa Hussein was the founder and of the Shemesh Sedaqah Synagogue in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem.
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Sadqa Hussein was born in Baghdad, Ottoman Iraq, to Moshe Hussein, and grew up in a prosperous family.
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Sadqa Hussein was a fifth-generation descendant of the 18th-century rabbi Sadqa Bekhor Hussein, the author of the halakhic responsa.
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Sadqa Hussein later studied under the Ben Ish Hai, who would count him among his favorite students.
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Sadqa Hussein founded Midrash Talmud Torah, the community heder in Baghdad, which accepted hundreds of children regardless of their parents' ability to pay tuition.
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Sadqa Hussein stood virtually alone against his adversaries, who did not refrain from trying to compromise him vis-a-vis the authorities on account of his perceived antiquated positions.
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In 1924, with his family and a few close disciples, Sadqa Hussein made aliyah and settled in Jerusalem, then part of British Mandatory Palestine.
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In 1929, Sadqa Hussein established the Shemesh Sedaqah Synagogue, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, located on Haggai Street in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem.
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Sadqa Hussein both led the synagogue as rabbi, and taught in the synagogue to students and local householders.
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Sadqa Hussein kept a donkey for the fulfillment of the petter hamor.
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Sadqa Hussein demanded this kind of scrupulousness from his peers as well.
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Sadqa Hussein ordered Teitelbaum to desist from his practice of riding in a car on Friday afternoon after sundown; Teitelbaum based this practice on the rulings of Rabbeinu Tam, but Sadqa Hussein deemed it a violation of the Shabbat.
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An anti-Zionist, Sadqa Hussein refused to receive any benefit from his status in the community, recusing himself from any formal rabbinic position, although he did serve as dayan in the Sephardi Edah HaHaredith.
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Sadqa Hussein set up free Torah lectures for young and old, and either paid for tutors out of his own pocket, or taught the lessons himself.
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An expert mohel, Sadqa Hussein performed circumcisions on thousands of infants, sometimes to a fourth generation in the family.
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Sadqa Hussein's grandson, Menashe Sadqa, is a pulpit rabbi in Queens, New York.
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Sadqa Hussein died at the age of 85, and was buried in the Sanhedria Cemetery in Jerusalem.
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In 1933, Sadqa Hussein persuaded the father of a 12-year-old Ovadia Yosef to send his son to the Porat Yosef Yeshiva.