JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

witnessed and photographed in traveling two million miles
across six continents. He became a professional photographer
in 1935 after graduating from Fordham University. He
depended on commercial work until 1939 when the Museum
of Modern Art hired him as its first staff photographer. By
the following year he had transformed himself into an energetic
and committed photojournalist, artist, activist, teacher,
lecturer, and writer. His still work ranged from war reportage
and social photojournalism to food and glamour photography.
He focused often on art and architecture of ancient cultures,
and he loved Africa as a subject. He covered the London
blitz, and as a staff photographer for Life magazine, he
accompanied United States troops to North Africa. As a Hollywood
color consultant, he created the mood-inducing hues
of the film Moulin Rouge. Exhibitions of his paintings, often
with his photographs, were held in leading museums and galleries
throughout the world. He contributed to many books,
including The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythologies and Transformations
(1955), The Sculpture of Africa (1958), and The Nile
(1964), a work involving years of research.
[(Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)]
ELITZUR, sports organization of the religious workers movement,
*Ha-Po’el ha-Mizrachi. It was founded in 1938 at the
initiative of R. Meir *Bar-Ilan. Its early years in Ereẓ Israel
were devoted to mixed military and sports activities in the
framework of the Haganah and Palmaḥ and also in helping
“illegal” immigrants come safely ashore. Intensive sports activities
only developed after World War II. Its object was to
encourage sport among religious youth in a framework which
would not interfere with observance, with all activities taking
place on weekdays. Elitzur’s membership reached 25,000 in
130 branches throughout Israel by the 1990s. Its teams played
in the national leagues for basketball, volleyball, table tennis,
tennis, judo, swimming, chess, athletics, badminton, squash,
and handball but not for soccer where games are played on
Saturdays. Outstanding has been the encouragement of sport
among Ethiopian immigrant children and youth, producing
several Israel champions in light athletics and winners of the
Israel marathon.
Starting in 1983, the Elitzuria games were held every 4–5
years with the participation of religious Jewish youth from
the Diaspora and Israel, attracting as many as 2,000 athletes
from 20 countries, including Eastern Europe and the former
U.S.S.R. World Elitzur has branches in North and South
America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia.
Bibliography: M. Michelson (ed.), Ḥoveret Eliẓur (1968).
[Zeev Braverman]
ELIYAHU, MORDECHAI (1929– ), Israeli religious leader,
kabbalist, and former Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel. Born
into a Jerusalem family of little means, Eliyahu was 11 years
old when his father and teacher, Ḥakham Salman Eliyahu,
passed away. Eliyahu then continued his studies at Yeshivat
Porat Yosef with the Rabbi Ezra Attiah. For a number of years
eliyia, joseph
he studied with Rabbi Abraham Yeshaya *Karelitz, the Ḥazon
Ish. He graduated from the Institute of Rabbis and Religious
Judges headed by Rabbi Isaac *Nissim, the former chief rabbi
of Israel. Upon graduation he became the youngest dayyan
(religious court judge) appointed to a religious court in Israel.
He served on the rabbinic court in Beersheba for four years
and then transferred to the court in Jerusalem. Eventually, he
was elected to the High Rabbinic Court, where he continued
to serve. In 1983 he was elected Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel
and served one term until 1993. During his term as chief rabbi
and afterwards, as well, Eliyahu, together with his colleague,
Chief Rabbi Abraham *Shapira, became one of the spiritual
leaders of the religious Zionist camp in Israel. For over 20
years, he spoke out on political and social issues of concern to
religious Zionism. During the events leading up to the Israeli
government’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, he was a vocal
opponent of the removal of the Jews from their homes and
the uprooting of Jewish communities in Gaza.
Eliyahu is the author of several popular works on halakhah,
including Darkhei Taharah, about the laws of family purity
(published in five languages); an annotated and updated
edition of the Kiẓẓur Shulḥan Arukh; a Sephardi rite siddur;
and various pamphlets regarding Jewish law. Every Monday
Rav Eliyahu taught a shi’ur (lesson) that could be heard on
the radio over the Internet and by satellite in 250 localities
throughout Israel. He also had his own website: http://www.
harav.org. Eliyahu’s second son, SAMUEL, was chief rabbi of
Safed. Eliyahu was recognized as a posek (halakhic decisor)
and kabbalist, with many coming to him with their halakhic
questions and for personal advice.
[David Derovan (2nd ed.)]
ELIYIA, JOSEPH (1901–1931), Greek poet, scholar, Hebraicist,
and translator. Eliyia was born in Janina (Ioannina), was
an ardent Zionist in 1917–18, and taught French at the Alliance
Israélite Universelle school in Janina. He was a radical in
defense of workers. His poem “Militarism” (1920) criticizing
the role of Greece in the Asia Minor War angered the Greek
authorities. He published demotic verse in various Athenian
periodicals (Noumas, Vigla, and Nea Estia) and in the Epiritikon
Aghon of Janina. His outstanding poems were love songs
dedicated to Rebekah, his ideal of womanhood. Eliyia’s major
translations include Greek versions of Isaiah and Job, the Song
of Songs, Ruth, and Jonah, the poems of Judah Halevi and Ibn
Gabirol, and the works of such modern Hebrew writers as Bialik,
Frishman, Shneur, Peretz, and Tchernichovsky. He also
wrote articles on Kabbalah and eschatology. He was one of the
first Jews to advocate liberal ideas in Ioannina. In 1924, as an
anti-militarist and leftist, he was arrested. He also developed
a socialist ideology. To avoid problems with the authorities,
he settled in Athens in 1925, writing in Filiki Etairia and the
Great Greek Encyclopaedia. In Athens he graduated from the
Ecole Française d’Athènes in 1930. A teaching appointment
necessitated Eliyia’s move in 1930 to Kilkis, a remote town in
northern Greece, where he was the only Jew in a hostile en-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 355