JERUSALEM, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri, regarded in Israel as a sage and mystic, died in Jerusalem of pneumonia.
No one knew his exact age, reports the Jewish Telegraph Agency. The Israeli religious party Shas with which the rabbi as associated said he was 106 years old.
Although Kadouri left no major religious writings, his funeral over the weekend drew some 250,000 mourners including Israel's chief rabbis and political notables, the report said.
Israeli President Moshe Katsav called him "one of the outstanding leaders of the Jewish people in the past generations."
The Iraqi-born Kadouri was an authority on Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah. He became an icon to Sephardi Jews, who attributed special powers to even the most mundane items he touched, says the report.
Kadouri helped perpetuate this image with his Spartan lifestyle that included chain-smoking cheap cigarettes which had little effect on his health. He was married twice, the second time when in was in his 90s to a woman half his age.
He was described as "a symbol and example to all of the repudiation of materialism."
