Rabbi Yosef Azran was niftar in a Paris hospital on Thursday at the age of 69 following transplant surgery. According to report, following the complicated liver transplant procedure, the rabbi’s “system collapsed”.

Rabbi Azran served as a member of Knesset and deputy minister for Shas, as a the rav in a number of areas, including Kiryat Malachi and Rishon L’Tzion, as well as an av beis din in France. He was also involved with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, engaged in dialogue and projects towards advancing yiddishkeit and Torah way of life.

Visiting him a number of hours before he was flown from Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem to France was Chief Rabbi HaGaon HaRav Yonah Metzger Shlita, who stated R’ Azran was concerned, wishing to make certain that someone would be appointed immediately to supervise kashrus in his city during his illness, always concerned with the tzibur.

Kehillah reports that when R’ Azran was asked during a past interview to reflect back to his young days, what he fondest memory was, he responded without hesitation, “The day Maran HaGaon HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt”l prepared an omlet for me with his very own hands”.

The niftar was known for his clinging to his Moroccan tradition, while possessing a level of expertise regarding minhag Ashkenaz too. BaKehilla’s Rav Yaakov Friedman states that R’ Azran is one of a very few “who entered into the Israeli political arena and emerged spiritually unscathed”.

For the Azran family, it was yet another tragedy for the rebbitzin was niftar in the past year and they also lost a son to illness. Arrangements regarding the levaya to be announced.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)