Rabbi David Batzri

On Friday 25 September 2026 Batzri collapsed at his home on Rabbi Landa Street in Bnei Brak. Emergency medical teams performed prolonged resuscitation and evacuated him in critical condition to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, where he was pronounced dead at age 85. No specific medical cause was made public. He had been hospitalised at times in recent years, including a serious stay at Hadassah Ein Kerem in 2023.

The Jerusalem Post, JNS and Hebrew religious outlets reported the death the same day. Shas leader Arye Deri called him a humble and righteous soul devoted to Torah and the Jewish people.

David Shalom Batzri was born in Jerusalem on 7 August 1941 to Rabbi Yosef and Victoria Batzri. Hebrew biographical sources place him in a line connected to the Ben Ish Hai and to the kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah.

He studied at Porat Yosef Yeshiva under Rabbi Ezra Attiya and the Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka, and later under Rabbi Salman Mutzafi. He also studied dayanut in the circle associated with Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim. He married Mutzafi's daughter Tzipora (who died in 2020), linking him by marriage to that Jerusalem kabbalistic household.

In the early 1970s Batzri headed Hevrat Ahavat Shalom with Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Hillel. He later founded Yeshivat HaShalom in Makor Baruch, Jerusalem, with his son Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri, naming it for Rabbi Shalom Sharabi (the Rashash).

The yeshiva became a centre for Kabbalah study and for public tikunim. Batzri was also known for dybbuk-removal ceremonies, including cases covered by Israeli and foreign Jewish media. His public statements on political and social questions sometimes drew sharp criticism; in 2006 he and his son entered a plea arrangement after an indictment for racist incitement linked to remarks about Arabs, agreeing to refrain from further such speech and to publish a call against racist incitement.

Batzri's wife Tzipora, daughter of Rabbi Salman Mutzafi, died in 2020. Their sons include the kabbalists Rabbis Yitzhak, Moshe, Shlomo and Mordechai Batzri. Brothers include Rabbi Ezra Batzri, formerly a dayan on the Great Rabbinical Court, and Rabbis Sasson and Menachem Batzri.

In later years he lived in Bnei Brak while the yeshiva remained based in Jerusalem. His son Yitzhak took a growing share of institutional leadership as his father's health declined.

Batzri is remembered as head of Yeshivat HaShalom and as a widely consulted kabbalist among Sephardic communities, sometimes styled the Elder of the Kabbalists. The yeshiva and his sons continue the teaching and counsel associated with his name.

His career also left a contested public record: admirers emphasised healing prayers and mystical instruction, while critics pointed to inflammatory political remarks that led to legal scrutiny in 2006. Hebrew Wikipedia and contemporary press preserve both strands of that record.