Nestled in Netivot

Title: Nestled in Netivot

Location: Netivot, Israel

Document: Collage of newspaper clippings

Time: Late 1980s

A few months ago, a Grad missile landed just a few meters to the east of the Baba Sali’s grave. Several days later, another one exploded just to the west of the compound.… Many Netivot residents believe the situation would be a lot worse if not for the merit of the tzaddikim living and buried in the city.

“More than 50 grad missiles landed in the vicinity of Netivot, with only a few isolated ones exploding in the city itself, causing little damage,” says Netivot resident Rivka. “The tzaddikim are protecting us from the Heavens and preventing a calamity from befalling our town.”

—Ha’aretz, January 2, 2009

Missiles fired from Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008–09 may have prevented the annual 4 Shevat hilula of the Baba Sali, but the throngs returned the next year and have been increasing ever since. Upon the passing of Rav Yisrael Abuchatzeira (1889–1984), his final resting place in Netivot, Israel, brought large and diverse crowds paying their respects and praying for their spiritual and physical needs. The Negev development town of Netivot was the renowned Moroccan kabbalist’s home for the last 14 years of his long life. But his road to Netivot went past quite a few stations along the way.

Scion to one of the most prestigious Moroccan rabbinical families, Rav Yisrael Abuchatzeira was born in the desert town of Rissani, in the Tafilalet region of eastern Morocco. Having resided in this area rich in Jewish history for centuries, the Abuchatzeira family dominated local rabbinical life. Upon the passing of his father, Rav Masoud Abuchatzeira, in 1908, the 19-year-old Baba Sali succeeded him as rosh yeshivah in Rissani, while his older brother, Rav David, assumed the rabbinate.

During a skirmish between colonial French troops and locals in 1919, Rav David was falsely accused of aiding the French and was publicly executed by local Arabs. Several members of the Abuchatzeira family fled Rissani as a result, among them the Baba Sali, who sought refuge in the small Berber town of Boudenib near the Algerian border in the Atlas Mountains. Though a refugee in exile, he duly reestablished his yeshivah in his new home.

To pursue spiritual growth, especially in the realm of Toras Hanistar, the Baba Sali traveled to Eretz Yisrael in 1922. Studying in the renowned Beit El yeshivah for mekubalim in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Baba Sali added to the kabbalistic knowledge that was his family legacy and that would become the hallmark of his own life and career in the ensuing decades. Following his short stint in Beit El, he returned to Boudenib, where he continued teaching Torah. In 1933 he moved once again to the Old City of Yerushalayim, this time to learn in the esteemed Porat Yosef Yeshivah overlooking the Kosel. Shortly thereafter he again returned to Morocco.