Shalom Cohen is one of eight children born to Rabbi Efraim Hakohen, a Sephardi kabbalist, in Jerusalem. His father had been a disciple of the Ben Ish Chai in Baghdad before immigrating to Palestine in 1924. In 1931, the year Shalom was born, his father was appointed rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem. Shalom began studying at Porat Yosef Yeshiva at the age of 13, and developed a reputation for "diligence and ingenuity". He married Yael, the daughter of Rabbi Mansour Ben Shimon, a Safed kabbalist who also taught at Porat Yosef. The couple has eight children. Notwithstanding his youth, Cohen began delivering shiurim at Porat Yosef after his wedding, and has taught students for decades. He was named rosh yeshiva of the Old City branch of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in 1966. Though his father and father-in-law were kabbalists, he himself is not.
Political activity
Cohen entered the political arena for the first time in 1984, when he agreed to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's request to support the founding of the Shas party and serve on the new Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah rabbinic council. In April 2014, six months after Yosef's death, Cohen succeeded him as nasi of the council. Cohen is an outspoken critic of Modern Orthodox and secular Jews in Israel. In 2013, he compared the kippah serugah community to Amalek, the biblical archenemy of the Jewish people, and in 2015, he called the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah", "a stupid song". He told Israeli soldiers at a prayer rally during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, "Do you think the people of Israel need an army? It is God Almighty who fights for Israel." He has also expressed hard-line views on issues affecting the Haredi community in Israel. In 2014, he decried the dire effects on Israeli Sephardi Jews of the proposed Israeli law to draft yeshiva students, and issued a letter in which he forbade Haredi women from undertaking post-high-school studies at academic colleges. He has urged his constituency to refrain from using smartphones and to strengthen their involvement in Torah study.
Other activities
Cohen is on the board of Beis DinTzedek Neveh Tzion, a kosher certification agency founded by his brothers-in-law, Rabbi Nissim Ben Shimon and Rabbi Shlomo Ben Shimon.
