A report on Ovadia Yosef and Porat Yosef Yeshiva

He was rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem for 45 years, nurturing thousands of students who, together with their students, constitute the bulk of Sephardic Torah leadership today.

Among Attiya's most famous students are Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul, and Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri.

Ben Zion Abba Shaul (בן-ציון אבא-שאול; 31 July 1924 – 13 July 1998; on the Hebrew calendar: 29 Tammuz 5684 – 19 Tammuz 5758) (first name also spelled Ben Sion) was one of the leading Sephardic rabbis, Torah scholars and halakhic arbiters of his day, and the rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem for the last 15 years of his life.

His first teacher was Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka (who was only 21 at the time) and his classmates included the future Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.

He was a protege of Rabbi Ezra Attiya, rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva, who trained and dispatched students to leadership positions in Sephardi communities around the world.

His classmates included Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul, Rabbi Yehuda Moallem, Rabbi Zion Levy, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

In his youth, Eliyahu attended Porat Yosef Yeshiva, and had the opportunity to learn from many great teachers such as Ezra Attiya, Sadqa Hussein, and Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz (the Chazon Ish).

Eliyahu worked for the preservation of the Iraqi Jewish rite and the opinions of the Ben Ish Hai, and opposed the attempts of Ovadia Yosef to impose a uniform "Israeli Sephardi" rite based on the Shulchan Aruch and his own halakhic opinions.

Yosef is the son of Ovadia Yosef, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, and bases his halakhic rulings on his father's methodology.

At age 12, he began his studies at the junior yeshiva of Porat Yosef in Katamon, Jerusalem.

In 1973, he began to study at Porat Yosef, a leading Sephardic yeshiva in Jerusalem.

However, on 28 December 2014, Channel 2 released video footage in which Ovadia Yosef, the founder of Shas, attacked Deri, calling him a wicked man and a thief.