Community Magazine December 2013

1) Research, Research, Research: Everything boils down to how much work you are willing to put into thoroughly researching your subject. Yehuda Azoulay has been working on the biography of Maran for 6 years already! 2) Be Passionate: You must have a burning desire to learn everything you can about your subject. In the case of Maran, Yehuda admits to having already read over 15 books on Maran in Hebrew! “Whatever I can get my hands on, I will read, and remember.” 3) Know Your Subject: It helps to know your subject. Yehuda was privileged to have had a personal relationship with Hacham Ovadia Yosef, and spent several Yom Kippurs praying in Hacham Ovadia’s private bet midrash, and even spent Sukkot with Maran. If you know your subject, you can tell which stories “just don’t fit in.” 4) Get Inside: Yehuda became very well acquainted with Maran’s family and inner circle, and was thereby able to glean much information that might have otherwise been inaccessible, and to verify things that he had heard or read. He was even invited to the Knesset for a week of talks with Shas ministers and officials, who even offered him to be a candidate to head their American office! 5) Assemble a Team: to research a giant such as Hacham Ovadia, one person is not enough! Rabbi Shai Cabessa of Jerusalem spent almost two years reading through every one of Maran’s 57 published sefarim , an amazing feat, and found much biographical and historical information tucked away in Maran’s writings. Mrs. Rafaella Levine compiled, translated, edited and arranged the mounds of source material, photos and documentation required to fashion a book out of a mass of information. Other contributors to the project are Leon Sakkal, Uri Cheskin, and of course Yehuda himself. 6) Travel and Eyeball: “Travel and Eyeball” means don’t rely on second and third-hand information for your book – go and find out for yourself. Yehuda has traveled to Israel three times specifically for this project. He has conducted interviews with the Rabbi’s students, family, gabbaim (caretakers), and Shas members closest to Maran. He has perused the personal archives of Maran and copied hundreds of documents, and he has assembled thousands of photos of Hacham Ovadia taken throughout his lifetime. 7) Practice Makes Perfect: “Maran” will be Yehuda’s fifth biography and sixth book overall. He has developed an eye for separating fact from fantasy, and questionable stories don’t even make it into the first draft. “I recommend reading ‘The Legacy of Maran’ book for uplifting and absorbing stories, and the ‘Maran’ biography, when it comes out, for a real study of Maran’s life and to learn from his ways. Both of them will leave you with lessons to last a lifetime.” “But Are The Stories Really True?” Often we read biographies and stories of Hachamim, especially contemporary rabbis that we knew and observed personally such as Maran Hacham Ovadia Yosef zt”l , and we find some of the stories simply hard to believe! We asked biographer Yehuda Azoulay to summarize for us the process of creating a book like the one on Maran, and how he knows that what he’s writing is reliable and authentic. One of the many meetings Yehuda Azoulay had with Hacham Ovadia Yosef zt”l . The two books on Maran’s desk are ‘A Legacy of Leaders Volume I & Volume II’. Letter of Endorsement from Hacham Ovadia Yosef, zt”l and the Haskama for Yehuda’s new book from Maran’s son, Hacham Yitzchak Yosef shlit”a , Rishon Lezion Chief Rabbi of Israel. 36 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE