Abbo, Raphael

Raphael Abbo (1913 Safed - 1983 Ramat Gan) was a rabbi, dayan (religious judge) and representative of the "Otzar Hatorah" educational network in Morocco. He was born to a dynasty of wealthy businessmen and rabbis whose name was linked to the history of Jewish settlement in the Galilee in the nineteenth century. In the 1930s, after his marriage, he moved to Tiberias, where he directed a Sephardic Talmud Torah. In Tiberias he also founded the "Or Haim" yeshiva and a branch of the Orthodox youth movement “Tseirey Agudas Yisroel”. In 1947, Rabbi Raphael Abbo moved to Morocco to establish and manage the "Otzar Hatorah" educational network. After returning to Israel in 1950, he was the head of the rabbinical courts in Haifa and Tel Aviv, and a dayan at the Great Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem. He also established the Beth midrash “Or Raphael” in Jerusalem. Raphael Abbo’s private collection contains: his personal documents and autobiography; private correspondence; correspondence with other rabbis; sermons; papers regarding his activities as dayan and the head of the Rabbinical court in Tel-Aviv; records on donations; papers of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and related to Agudat Yisrael; various historical documents on emissaries sent to the diaspora to raise funds for religious Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel; various papers, books, booklets, magazines and papers concerning Judaism and Halakha (Jewish religious laws). An important part of the collection are numerous records related to the "Otzar Hatora" organization in Morocco: letters; reports; plans of activities; minutes of the committee meetings; materials on the establishing of the organization’ schools in different cities; papers on teaching girls; data on financial matters; lists of the students' and teachers’ names; papers on migration to Israel -- Read more