Editing Yosef Hayyim (section)

==Biography==
Hayim initially studied in his father's library, and, at the age of 10, he left the [[beth midrash]] and began to study with his uncle, [[David Hai Ben Meir]], who later founded the ''Shoshanim LeDavid'' [[yeshiva]] in [[Jerusalem]]. In 1851, he married Rachel, the niece of [[Abdallah Somekh]], his prime mentor, with whom he had a daughter and two sons.

When Hayim was only twenty-five years old, his father died.<ref>https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/chacham-yosef-chaim-ben-ish-chai {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref> Despite his youth, the [[History of the Jews in Baghdad|Jews of Baghdad]] accepted him to fill his father's place as the leading rabbinic scholar of Baghdad, though he never filled the official position of ''[[Hakham Bashi]]. ''The Sephardic [[Porat Yosef Yeshiva]] in [[Jerusalem]] was founded on his advice by Joseph Shalom, of [[Calcutta]], [[India]]—one of Hayim's patrons.

Hayim clashed with the reformist Bavarian Jewish scholar [[Jacob Obermeyer]], who lived in Baghdad from 1869 to 1880, and Hayyim [[herem (censure)|excommunicated him]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Snir |first1=Reuven |title='Religion Is for God, the Fatherland Is for Everyone': Arab-Jewish Writers in Modern Iraq and the Clash of Narratives after Their Immigration to Israel |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=2006 |volume=126 |issue=3 |pages=379–399 |jstor=20064515 |quote-page=381 |quote=Yoseif Chaim (1832–1909), who forcefully condemned Obermeyer's innovations. The communal leaders also united in putting him into ''cherem'' {{sic}} (exclusion from communal participation) and the proclamation was read aloud in every synagogue in Baghdad. }}</ref> Part of the contention was due to Obermeyer and Hayim's conflicting views on promotion of the ''[[Zohar]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stahl |first1=Abraham |title=Ritualistic Reading among Oriental Jews |journal=Anthropological Quarterly |date=1979 |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=115–120 |doi=10.2307/3317261 |jstor=3317261 |quote-page=115 |quote=Jacob Obermeyer, a German Jew who lived in Baghdad from 1869 to 1880, found that many people read the Zohar although they did not understand its meaning. Elderly people told him that the custom was fairly new and not much in vogue in their youth. }}</ref>