An Excerpt from From Leaders to Leaders: Insights from the Past, Present, and Future of Jewish Leadership
I am pleased to share an excerpt from my latest article, “Leadership Written in Deeds: On Service, Descent, and the Making of a Ḥakham,” published by Da’at Press in From Leaders to Leaders, a new volume devoted to Jewish leadership across generations.
My article examines the life of Rabbi Salman Ḥogi Abudi (1894–1973), the last Chief Rabbi of Baghdad, as a study in religious leadership. He published nothing during his lifetime, yet thousands attended his funeral, and what survives of his legacy is largely a record of what he did: during the Farhud, he entered the streets of Baghdad to identify the dead, attend to their burial, and care for the wounded; after immigrating to Israel, he accepted manual labor clearing stones and planting trees; and after returning to rabbinic leadership, he traveled among the immigrant transit camps to see firsthand the conditions in which members of his former community were living. His life asks us to reconsider how we measure leadership: what remains when we strip away titles, institutions, publications, and prestige?
I am particularly glad that this volume also includes an article by my husband, Rabbi Yonatan Halevy, “We Shall Do Our Thing”: Halakhic Ingenuity and the Art of Not Overreacting. Having our work appear alongside one another in a volume devoted to questions of Jewish leadership is especially meaningful to me.
This volume was published in connection with the Second Annual Sephardic Rabbinic Conference, “The Art of Leadership,” where I was also privileged to participate as a panelist in a discussion on pastoral care, loneliness, addiction, and mental health in our communities. The panel explored questions that intersect closely with my own professional and academic work, including the responsibilities and limits of rabbinic pastoral care, recognizing and responding to distress, and developing effective relationships between religious leaders and mental health professionals. My panel and additional information can be found here: Pastoral Care: Loneliness, Addiction & Mental Health in Our Communities | SRC 2026.
The Conference and this accompanying volume reflect an initiative led by our friend and colleague Rabbi Joseph Dweck, together with Avi Garson, Ohad Fedida, and Ethan Marcus, to foster serious conversation about the responsibilities, challenges, and future of Sephardic rabbinic leadership.
I am sharing an excerpt from the article here and encourage those interested in Jewish leadership, Sephardic history, and the modern Iraqi Jewish experience to purchase and explore the complete volume.
Rabbi Abudi’s life offers a demanding conception of leadership: to see the suffering of one’s community, to take responsibility for it, and to be willing to enter into it rather than lead from a distance.
