Baruch Abuhatzeira (born 1941), also known as Baba Baruch, is an Israeli Kabbalist and Rabbi. He is the son of the leading Moroccan Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira, also known as the Baba Sali.
Prior to his career as a Kabbalist, Baba Baruch had a short political career, when he was elected as Deputy Mayor of Ashkelon. He was later tried and sentenced to five years in prison for corruption and bribery connected to his role as deputy mayor. I recently acquired a document from his days in the political world, hand-signed by him. The document is a response to a request to have permits issued to build on a property, Baba Baruch's response was that 500 lira were first needed to be deposited in to a specific bank account detailed in the letter.
Baba Baruch made it to the last list of Forbes Richest Israeli Rabbis, with a value of only 50 million shekel.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesofisrael.com/forbes-ranks-israels-richest-rabbis/
For those of you too young to remember, Israel was rocked after his father's death when newspapers published a collection of love letters to a woman which he wrote while married to a different woman.
http://www.israelpost.co.il/unforget.nsf/lettersbycategory/E6D800974A70DAD0C2257BA80026E127?opendocument
A far cry from his great father whom I had the honor to receive a blessing from. They don't make them as they used to.