“Hazon Ovadia,” in 1952. In 1970, the government awarded him the prestigious Israel Prize in recognition of his books. Yosef defeated a sitting chief rabbi in the 1973 election, itself a ...

Everyone in Israel knew Ovadia Yosef’s name, but in public his followers would hardly use it, opting instead to call him Maran, our master. On the sidewalk, a half-dozen men stood at a long ...