Eliyahu Zini

In 2013, on reaching retirement age, he left his position.

Prior to the 2009 Israeli election, Zini wrote: "At least two goals must stand before our eyes in these elections: The first, support for those who defend the Torah and the Jewish identity, and the second, support for all those who defend the land of Israel and oppose with all their might a chain of terrible concessions that have already brought about enough bloodshed and enough disasters for the entire Israeli reality." He recommended voting for The Jewish Home party or the National Union and was careful to note that "these matters are not the opinion of the other institution at which I work."

In 2001, he founded Yeshivat Or Vishua, a hesder yeshiva located near the Technion.

In an article published on 12 August 1995 in the newspaper "Aleh," Zini wrote: "An ordinance of evacuation of civilian settlements is not only an illegal ordinance, but also an ordinance that assists the enemy... Any ordinance that assists the enemy... Any order of evacuation will be considered as carrying out the job of the enemy who desires the execution of this ordinance."

Rabbi Zini is well known within the world view that sees the land of Israel as one of the foundations of Judaism, and it is within this world view that his political stance manifests itself. In November 1994, during the harsh debates within Israeli society over the Oslo Accords, he said in his weekly broadcast on Israeli news station Arutz Sheva: "Apparently God knows why the ways of the evildoers who currently run our country have succeeded, for apparently we and you did not do what He expected of us...Meanwhile, of the one primarily responsible for the deterioration of the situation, Mr. Rabin, it is said disgrace on your holiday tomorrow and those who celebrate with you, and may it be God's will to save us quickly from you and then there will be much peace for those who love His name and Torah."

He served in Israel's Medical Corps and fought in the 1982 Lebanon War.

When the previous rabbi of the Technion decided leave his position, he advised the senate of the Technion to appoint Zini in his place. In 1980, Zini began serving as the rabbi of the Technion in addition to his position as a lecturer.

At the start of his operations at the Technion, Rabbi Zini acted privately, delivering lectures and organizing events for students. In 1980, the previous rabbi of the Technion, Rabbi Aharon She'ar-Yashuv, left the institution, recommending that Zini take his place.

In 1970 he made aliyah to the land of Israel, living first in Bnei Brak and then moving to Haifa. There he became close with Rabbi Professor Benjamin Ze'ev Benedict, rabbi of the Ahuza neighborhood, from whom he would later receive semikhah. At the Technion, he completed his doctorate in mathematics which he had begun in Paris, and he did his post-doctorate at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Afterward, he returned to the Technion as a senior associate lecturer in the Faculty of Mathematics and as a senior associate lecturer of Talmud and Jewish philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Arts.

Rabbi Zini immigrated to Israel in 1970. He moved to Bnei Brak and began finishing his doctoral studies at the Technion. On his return to the Technion as an associate senior lecturer, Zini began activities to draw in the new immigrants from amongst the student body. A group of French immigrants formed the original basis of the minyan at the Technion synagogue.

With the end of French sovereignty in Algeria in 1962, Eliyahu Zini moved with his family to Paris, where he finished his secondary school studies and began studying mathematics in the University of Paris. He began rabbinical studies under Rabbi Shlomo Dahan. He also studied karate and earned his second-degree black belt.

Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Rahamim Zini (born 11 August 1946) is the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Or Vishua, which he founded in Haifa in 2001. In the past, he has served as the rabbi of the Technion, as a lecturer in its Faculty of Mathematics, and in the Department of Humanities and Arts.

Eliyahu Zini was born on 11 August 1946 to a family of Torah scholars, the eldest of Rachel and Rabbi Meir Zini, the rabbi of Taharat, Algeria. The origins of the Zini family are traced back to Rabbi Joseph Yoshto, a student of Isaac Alfasi from Jaén, Spain in northeastern Andalusia. His mother Rachel, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, met his father while he was an officer in the Free French Forces when the camp was liberated.