Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, also known as the Abir Yaakov and Abu Hasira, was a leading Moroccan-Jewishrabbi of the 19th century.
Biography
In 1879, Abuhatzeira left his native Morocco and embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land via Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. While passing through the Egyptian Nile Deltacity ofDamanhour, he grew ill and died. He was buried in Damanhour, where his tomb has become a site of pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage
Every year on the 19th of Tevet a ceremony is held at his tomb in Egypt, often attended by hundreds of devotees, many travelling from Israel. The tomb is an official antiquity site protected by the government of Egypt. Some Egyptians have protested against permitting Israeli pilgrims to enter Egypt to make the annual pilgrimage to Rabbi Abuhatzeira's tomb. In 2012, the Egyptian foreign ministry told Israel that it would not be "appropriate" for Israeli pilgrims to make an annual visit to the tomb of Rabbi Abuhatzeira. GamalHeshmat of the Muslim Brotherhood said that activists planned to stage sit-ins and other protests to block the route to pilgrims. Activists are against "normalization" of relations with Israel. An Egyptian court permanently banned a Jewish celebration that has taken place since the 1979 peace deal with Israel and asked the government to remove the tomb where it takes place from a list of official shrines, judicial sources said on Dec 29, 2014.The court said its decision was due to "moral offenses" committed in previous years at the three-day festival celebrating the birth of Rabbi Jacob Abu Hasira. It did not elaborate on what the offenses were. More than a 1000 people attended annually, making much noise all night long, getting drunk, walking around naked, having sex openly and all of this in this rural area.
Descendants
He is the grandfather of Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, also known as the Baba Sali, a revered rabbi and kabbalist whose tomb in Netivot is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Israel.
