Ahavat Shalom
1939 CE · Contemporary · Jerusalem
R. Yaakov Moshe Hillel (b. 1939) is the leading living Sephardic-Kabbalist posek and the founder/rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Ahavat Shalom in Jerusalem — the premier institution worldwide for Sephardic-Lurianic Kabbalah study. Born in Bombay to a Baghdadi-Indian family, he made aliyah and studied with the senior Sephardic kabbalists of postwar Jerusalem.
His Vayashav HaYam (a multi-volume kabbalistic-halachic work), Sefer Faskol Tov, and his Sho-Shanat HaAmakim on Lurianic prayer intentions are core modern Sephardic kabbalistic references. He is also known for his Ad HaGal HaZeh polemic against perceived deviations from authentic Lurianic-Sephardic tradition.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the orchard map →
Cochin (Kochi)קוצ׳יןKerala (India) — Malabar coast
What they did here
Born in Bombay (Mumbai) to a Baghdadi-Indian family. Studied with the Sephardic-Mizrachi community of Bombay.
Cochin (Kochi) in this era
Cochin's small Jewish community (peaking at around 2,500 in the 1940s) almost entirely emigrated to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, attracted by Zionist appeal and the post-independence economic difficulties of Kerala. Today only a handful of elderly Jews remain in Cochin itself; the Paradesi Synagogue continues as a heritage site, and the community survives in Israel primarily in Moshav Nevatim in the Negev, where they have preserved their distinctive Malayalam-Hebrew liturgical tradition.
About Cochin (Kochi)
The Cochin Jews trace their settlement to either the destruction of the First Temple or to early-Christian-era Roman trade. The Paradesi community of post-1492 Sephardic refugees built the still-standing 1568 Paradesi Synagogue. R. Nehemia Mota (16th c.) is the community's venerated saint.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.