A Short Tribute

Hacham Yitzhak Hazzan was born to Mas'ouda and Hacham Meir in 1919, in the village of El Mansouria in Draa, Morocco.

As a child, he studied with his father and with the sages of his village. In 1936 he left his village for Meknes to study in yeshiva with Hacham Yedidya Toledano, who would become his principal teacher. During the evenings, he studied with Hacham Meir Toledano, in whose home he also lodged.

In 1940 Hacham Yitzhak Hazzan returned to the village of his birth to serve as rabbi of El Mansouria, while his father was still alive. During this period he studied with Hacham Shimon Dayan, whose book of Responsa Zahav Shva he helped get published. In 1941 he married Aisha Revakh, and the couple had ten children. He was appointed mesader gittin (divorce officiant) for all Jewish communities in the Draa region in 1944, and in 1947 was appointed supervisor of the region's marriage officiants and rabbinic court scribes. He left Draa in 1948 for Casablanca, where he taught at the Otsar Torah Institute. In 1954 he was appointed Dayan and Rabbi of Agadir. In 1955, he was appointed to the Casablanca Rabbinic Court, and in 1956 appointed its Rosh Beit Din - President of the Rabbinic Court. He immigrated to Israel in 1967, where he first lived in Jerusalem. He later moved to Haifa to serve there as dayan and founded the Beit Yosef kollel. In 1988, he was appointed to the Great Rabbinic Court of Jerusalem.

Hacham Yitzhak Hazzan passed away on 1 Iyar, 5750 (1990). Three of his books were published during his lifetime: Yechaveh Da'at, Volumes 1 and 2, and Ko LeChai – on the Passover Haggadah. Be'er Ya'akov, Re'akh HaGet, Yechaveh Da'at Volume 3, Hachmat Yitzhak, L'Yitzhak Re'akh, and Larutz Ore’akh were published posthumously.