| Amnon Yitzhak אמנון יצחק |
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Amnon Yitzchak at a seminar on spiritual improvement and repentance in Acre, Israel. |
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| Born | November 8, 1953 Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Residence | Israel |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Citizenship | Israel |
| Known for | Kiruv |
| Religion | Sefardic Haredi Judaism |
Amnon Yitzhak (Hebrew: אמנון יצחק) (b. 8 November 1953), is an Orthodox Haredi Israeli.
Harav Amnon Yitzhak is best known for his involvement in Orthodox Judaism outreach (Kiruv). He is involved in activities which are centered on helping Jews to become more religious or observant. In public speaking in Israel and around the world and his 'Shofar' organization distributes his lectures in various media and on the internet.[1][2] He does not issue halakhic opinions.
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Amonon Yitzhak was born in Tel Aviv, Israel to a Yemenite Jewish family. He was brought up in a non-religious home, and became religious at the age of 24, after stumbling across the sefer Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, that he received for his Bar Mitzvah.
In 1986 he established the non-profit organization 'Shofar' for promoting the "return to religion" amongst the Jewish Israeli population.[3] His lectures and other activities have made Yitzhak a prominent Israeli rabbi since the early 1990s. Through 'Shofar', Yitzhak has launched two widely distributed weekly newspapers, Arba Kanfot and Shofar News geared to the Haredi public and general public respectively.[4] They ceased publication in 2008.
Yitzhak has also addressed the issue of the secular Zionist leadership, and has released, for example, a video titled "Herzl and Zionism", which presents a critical view of both. Yitzhak has said, referring to Theodore Herzl, "There have been two great criminals in the history of the Jewish people: Hitler and Herzl. Hitler wanted to destroy the body of the Jewish nation. Herzl wanted to kill the soul, which is far more important than the body."[5]
In a cassette titled "In the Shadow of Democracy" he strongly criticizes the State of Israel and the Zionist leadership for their attitude towards the Mizrahi-Traditional and Haredi Jewish public, especially during the period of the Holocaust.[6] According to Avishai Ben Haim, Ynet correspondent on Jewish Religious Affairs, Yitzhak "is considered to have a clear anti-Zionist position, similar to that of the Satmar Hasidim. Like them, he boycotts the Knesset elections. This view is extremely rare among the Haredi-Mizrahi public, and even rarer among Mizrahi newly-observant Jews - Amnon Yitzhak's primary target audience."[6]