Reuven Ohana

Reuven Ohana (72), a resident of Safed, married and a father of six, is a Torah scholar who served twenty years in the Safed rabbinate. He grew up in the home of Moroccan immigrants, in a rabbinical family from Casablanca.

He studied at a state-religious school and at a hesder yeshiva, then served in a combat unit and afterward in the reserves, including during the Lebanon War. At the end of his regular service he and his wife, herself the daughter of a family of Moroccan immigrants, chose a Charedi life and settled in Safed, among the first families of the Maor Chaim neighborhood.

He studied in a kollel and then served in various positions in the city’s rabbinate. Alongside his rabbinical work he has devoted many years to Torah writing: his articles appear in Torah journals, among them Ohr Torah and Moriah, and he is cited in the responsa of Rabbi Shalom Messas, of blessed memory.

He gives Torah classes in synagogues, has accompanied immigrant families from the former Soviet Union, and remains active to this day on behalf of the elderly as well.

His five sons and his daughter were educated in Charedi institutions, from cheder through yeshiva. Four of his sons served in the IDF, and some of his sons devote themselves to full-time Torah study.