On the 13th of Elul, the Jewish world marks the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, known universally as the Ben Ish Chai—117 years since his passing in 1909. Yet the location of his final resting place remains one of Jerusalem's most enigmatic historical puzzles.
The Ben Ish Chai, author of widely studied works on Jewish law and mysticism, died on the 13th of Elul, 5669 (1909), while traveling to pray at the tomb of the prophet Ezekiel in the Iraqi village of Kifl. Days later, he was buried in Baghdad's Jewish cemetery following a massive funeral procession attended by the entire community.
In 1961, Baghdad's Jewish cemetery was demolished by authorities, and the community was given approximately three months to relocate graves to an alternative burial ground in the eastern part of the city. What happened to the Ben Ish Chai's grave during this transfer has spawned two contradictory accounts: one claims his grandson, Rabbi David, personally oversaw the transfer of the grave to the new cemetery; the other maintains that when the original grave was opened, it was found empty.
Israel Meir Gabbai, chairman of the Ohalei Tzaddikim organization and an expert on Jewish burial sites, visited the relocated cemetery in Baghdad's Al-Habibiya neighborhood. A local guide pointed out a specific grave accepted as belonging to the Ben Ish Chai, but Gabbai emphasizes that verification is impossible since the original headstones were lost.
A different tradition, kept secret for decades and revealed to the public only years later, tells an entirely different story: the Ben Ish Chai's grave was never lost at all, but was brought for burial in Jerusalem itself.
According to this account, transmitted by Rabbi Avraham Ades, who immigrated to Jerusalem in 1895 and settled in the Bukharan Quarter, the Ben Ish Chai was buried in the Holy City in a clandestine manner. The book "Gedolei HaDorot" by Rabbi Y.M. Stern (Jerusalem, 1996, volume 3, page 908) recounts that a burial society official came to the home of Rabbi Ben Zion Chazan and demanded payment of half a gold lira for digging a grave for the rabbi in Jerusalem.
Remarkably, while a massive funeral was taking place in Iraq, a Jerusalem gravedigger was allegedly burying the deceased on the Mount of Olives and demanding payment from his student.
Rabbi Chazan was no ordinary disciple. The Ben Ish Chai had entrusted him with printing his books in Jerusalem to support the city's economy, and had commissioned him to establish the Porat Yosef Yeshiva. He chose to keep the matter of the Ben Ish Chai's Jerusalem burial secret for years.
Only in 1948, when Rabbi Chazan was taken captive to Jordan following the fall of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City and was uncertain of his return, did he hurry to reveal the secret to his friend, Rabbi Ephraim Menashe HaCohen, so the information would not be lost.
The tradition includes a mystical element: Rabbi Ades reportedly had a vision at midnight on the night of the Ben Ish Chai's death. While studying Kabbalah in the Bukharan Quarter, he dozed off and dreamed of Rabbi Avraham Laniado, a sage from Aleppo who had died some three hundred years earlier, dressed entirely in white garments, walking toward him. Rabbi Ades awoke startled, and only days later came news that this was the exact night Rabbi Yosef Chaim had passed away in Baghdad.
All these details, the name of Rabbi Laniado, the sum paid to the gravedigger, the circumstances of the revelation, are today inscribed on a headstone standing on the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount, directly opposite the Porat Yosef Yeshiva that the Ben Ish Chai helped establish.
The article credits Dr. Eyal Davidson for contributing to this account.
