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The Financial Express

Former Israeli chief rabbi dies after contracting coronavirus

| Updated: April 13, 2020 16:52:04


FILE PHOTO: Women walk by the shore of the Mediterranean Sea after Israel's health ministry urged people not to leave their homes except to seek "vital needs and services" in new directives in precautionary measures against coronavirus, in Tel Aviv, Israel March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Corinna Kern FILE PHOTO: Women walk by the shore of the Mediterranean Sea after Israel's health ministry urged people not to leave their homes except to seek "vital needs and services" in new directives in precautionary measures against coronavirus, in Tel Aviv, Israel March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Corinna Kern

A former Israeli chief rabbi has died after contracting the coronavirus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, in what is the country’s highest-profile death from the pandemic.

Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, who served from 1993 to 2003 as the state’s top chaplain for Sephardim, or Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, succumbed late on Sunday to complications from the respiratory virus in a Jerusalem hospital, aged 79, Reuters reported citing Israeli media.

“Tragically, Rabbi Bakshi-Doron contracted the coronavirus and doctors’ efforts to save him did not succeed,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

As of Sunday, Israel had reported 11,145 cases of the coronavirus and 103 deaths.

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