(JNS) Rabbi Shimon Baadani, zt”l, the president of the Shas Party’s Council of Torah Sages, died on Wednesday morning, Jan. 11 at Sheba Medical Center (Tel Hashomer Hospital) in Ramat Gan at the age of 94.

Baadani suffered from pneumonia and was hospitalized several times before his death.

Badaani was elected a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages with the party’s founding in 1984.

He rose to become the supreme authority in the Shas movement following the death of Rabbi Shalom Cohen in August 2022.

Badaani was born in Hadera in 1928 to parents of Yemenite origin and was one of the pioneers of Shas, a Sephardic ultra-Orthodox movement.

In a statement on Badani’s passing, the Shas Party said it was stunned by the loss, calling him a “model of his generation” who worked with dedication for the movement.