Few people wait almost a century before joining the political fray, yet the Israeli rabbi and mystic Yitzhak Kaduri, who has died at an estimated age of 106, did precisely that. In May 1996 he probably swung the crucial balance of 29,000 voters who ensured that the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister of Israel.
He did so by distributing thousands of "magic" amulets to his devotees, who were then obliged to vote for Netanyahu in the prime ministerial poll and for the Orthodox Shas party in the simultaneous party elections. Kaduri also bolstered Netanyahu's platform of "restoring Jewish values" by publicly endorsing him before polling day.
Once the centenarian acquired a taste for politics, it seemed he could not stop. He was soon urging more building at Har Homa, a controversial development south of Jerusalem and something of a rightwing cause célèbre. He also initiated bold personal bids for peace with Israel's arch-enemies, Syria and Iran. At one point he suggested trading the Golan Heights for an accord with Damascus - to the chagrin of Likud and Labour alike - though he subsequently changed his mind and ruled out returning the territory.
Particularly embarrassing for Israel's secular right was the incident in October 1997 when Netanyahu whispered to Kaduri that leftwing Israelis had "forgotten what it means to be Jewish" and were willing to "place our security in Arab hands" - not realising that the television cameras were still rolling at the time. In fairness, Kaduri never asked to be Netanyahu's confidant. Many, in fact, saw the sage as a senile victim of mischievous cohorts - especially his grandson Yossi Kaduri.
Shas politicians exploited his reputation, while others literally cashed in on his name. Kaduri was once delivered by helicopter to bless a sausage factory in a development town. Aparatchiks then collected monetary pledges from townsfolk who believed they could purchase heaven's favour via this holy conduit.
To David Levy, Israel's Moroccan-born former foreign minister, the Kaduri roadshow was "surrealistic", an abuse of innocent faith which was "dragging us back to the dark ages [and] leading us towards an abyss, blindness and near civil war". Even fellow mystics, like "Baba Baruch" Abu-Hatzeira, criticised those who "have turned Rabbi Kaduri into a circus, just to make money".
Small, bent and wizened, invariably draped in the white robes of an oriental Jewish kabbalist (or purveyor of Jewish mysticism), Kaduri was little known in political circles until May 1996. But images of his benignly smiling face, which dangled from the rear-view mirrors of taxis scuttling between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, indicated his popularity.
He was born in Iraq and went to Jerusalem early in the last century. He lived in a poor neighbourhood, attended Porat Yosef yeshiva (or rabbinical seminary) and, around 1930, transferred to Beit El (House of God) yeshiva, a centre for studying the mystical tradition in Judaism. Three years later he had his own consulting rooms in the Old City, where he taught clients how to predict the future by divining secret texts hidden in the Psalms, or how to summon angels to help overcome personal problems.
He refused money for these services, and worked as a bookbinder to keep body and soul together. The Jerusalem writer Haim Be'er recalled: "His appearance was striking; he radiated a great deal of human warmth. [Whenever he] passed by, people would whisper, 'There goes a truly righteous individual.'"
So what transformed the humble saint into a political potentate? The answer partly lies in Israel's recent social changes. Sephardi Jews who came to Israel from the Middle East and north Africa felt ostracised by the secular, socialist establishment. Many expressed their defiance by backing the opposition Likud. Others took solace in traditional modes of worship, such as Kaduri's.
If dispensing blessings was one of Kaduri's stocks-in-trade, so was sending curses. In 1991 he sought out the name of Saddam Hussein's mother, so that he could send efficacious pulsa denura - Aramaic for "lashings of fire" - against this enemy of the Jews. Kaduri was also implicated in the death curse on Yitzhak Rabin, which was eerily pronounced just a month before the Labour premier's assassination in November 1995. Although he was never proved to be a signatory, in the eyes of secular detractors guilt by association was good enough.
Conventionally Orthodox Jews, too, lampooned Kaduri's folk customs as foolish and alien to normative Judaism. They enjoyed pointing out that his supposedly divine amulets were marked "Made in Taiwan".
Undaunted, Kaduri intoned over Netanyahu in March 1997: "May the Almighty keep and protect the prime minister; may he live long, defeat all his enemies and win the next elections." Clearly in a generous mood, he got a party of Israeli Arabs to convey goodwill messages to the then Syrian president, Hafez al-Asad. In September 1997 he blessed Asad - albeit by letter - invited him to visit Jerusalem and called for "a historic reconciliation between our two peoples". Three months later, a similar Kaduri missive was dispatched to Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
By 1998, however, Kaduri was coming under attack. The liberal daily, Ha'aretz, sardonically named him Man of the Year. Even former Sephardi chief rabbi Ovadiah Yosef questioned the credentials of a man who had never written a single religious article, let alone a book. Kaduri, in turn, criticised show-business and other celebrities who claimed to have taken up Judaism's mystical tradition. When Madonna made a midnight visit to the grave of a sage while visiting Israel in 2004, he asserted: "It is forbidden to teach Kabbalah to a non-Jew."
Six years ago, Kaduri spoke of a vision in which heaven blessed a little known Israeli presidential candidate, Moshe Katsav. As a result all 17 Shas MPs voted for Katsav, defeating the favourite, Shimon Peres. Apparently peeved by the treatment of his once-imprisoned protege and former Shas leader, Aryeh Deri, Kaduri's family conjured up a new party, Ahavat Yisrael (Love of Israel), but it returned no seats in the 2003 elections.
His son and daughter survive him. An estimated 200,000 people filled the streets of Jerusalem for his funeral.
· Yitzhak Kaduri, rabbi and mystic, born around 1900; died January 28 2006
