HaCohen was born in
Mogador, Morocco in 1851 to Yehudah and Simha. In 1864, when he was thirteen, HaCohen and his family moved to
Ottoman Palestine and settled in the
Old City of
Jerusalem where he enrolled in the
Maghrebi Jewish school for religious studies. At the age of nineteen HaCohen married Priha, a fellow
Moroccan Jew; they had no children. In 1897 HaCohen took a second wife named Frida, née Shrem, from
Aleppo,
Syria, with whom he had four children. HaCohen was head of
Yeshivat Touvy Yisbau in Jerusalem. He was a follower of the Mekubalim (
Kabbalists) at ‘Beit–El’ yeshiva and synagogue and taught at
Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Later he was involved in founding and heading Oz L’Tora Yeshiva. On 21 May 1900, HaCohen was elected Chairman of the Ma’araviim Community in Jerusalem, in addition to being deputy to the
Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Jews in Palestine,
Nahman Batito. In 1915 after Batito's death, HaCohen replaced him as President of the Moroccan Jewish community in Jerusalem. In 1919, HaCohen got hundreds of people to sign a petition requesting the
Delegates Committee of the Zionist Organization to support
Misgav Ladach Hospital in the Old City of Jerusalem which suffered from sub-standard health conditions in the aftermath of
World War I. HaCohen worked as a
religious emissary. In 1894 he went to
Jewish communities in
Saudi Arabia,
Uzbekistan, and the
Caucasus Mountains. In 1899 HaCohen went to
Bukhara, where he raised funds for the Jerusalem congregation and also arranged for
Torah Scrolls to be delivered to those remote communities. He worked with local scholars and philanthropists to publish books. The Chief Rabbi of Bukhara, Hizkiya HaCohen Rabin, wrote in a letter of him to a colleague: During his lengthy stay in Bukhara he learned
the native language of the
Bukharian Jews. HaCohen's final mission, in 1903, was to
Algiers, and to
Constantine, Algeria. In the preface of the second volume of his book
Minhat Cohen (1910) HaCohen referred to his activity there while writing a
responsum which he dated: “while I was residing during
Mitzvah mission. Kasantina month Adar year 5663…” Yosef Haim HaCohen died of a brief pulmonary infection on 22 Elul 5681 (25 September 1921). ==Publications==