The condition of former Chief Rabbi Rishon Letzion Mordechai Eliyahu took a turn for the worse over the Sabbath, and he is now listed in critical condition. The family requests prayers from the public. Hospitalized in the emergency open-heart ward, Rabbi Eliyahu’s family is at his bedside. The rabbi is on a respirator, and the hospital staff is attempting to stabilize his condition. His students emphasized that their main request is for the public to pray for the health of Mordechai Tzemach ben [son of] Mazal. A prayer service was held at 3 PM Sunday at the gravesite of the Hida, the 18th-century scholar Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, in the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. A women’s prayer service will be held Sunday evening at 8:30 at Rabbi Eliyahu’s synagogue in Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky of Bnei Brak, a leading sage of the hareidi-religious public, has joined in the call to hold prayer services around the country on behalf of Rabbi Eliyahu. Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who served as Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi from 1983 until 1993, has been hospitalized for most of the past 20 months, following open-heart surgery and a stroke.
