Jerusalem (AFP) - Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the spiritual leader of Israel's largest ultra-Orthodox political party, died in hospital Monday aged 91, his family said, as tens of thousands packed Jerusalem streets for his funeral.
Cohen, who headed the Council of Torah Sages, the highest body in the Shas party, had been at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem when his health deteriorated on Sunday evening, according to his family.
Shas head Aryeh Deri said he was "heartbroken" over Cohen's death.
"Woe to the world, which has lost its leader, and the ship which has lost its captain," Deri said in a pre-dawn statement.
Tens of thousands of mourners attended a funeral service for Cohen, who also led Porat Yossef, the leading Talmudic school for Sephardic Jews in Israel.
Israel's police force said hundreds of officers were deployed in Jerusalem to secure the procession, in which vast crowds of men and boys packed the streets.
"On behalf of the Israeli government and all the Israeli people, I send my condolences to his family, his pupils and all those who honour his memory," Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted.
Born in Jerusalem in 1930, Cohen succeeded the highly influential Rabbi Ovadia Yossef who died in 2013.
President Isaac Herzog expressed his "sadness" over Cohen's death, in a tweet alongside a picture with him.
"He was a spiritual leader who led with humility and modesty a large and important population in Israel and the Jewish world," Herzog wrote.
Shas was the third largest bloc in Israel's outgoing parliament, with nine out of the Knesset's 120 seats.
The Jewish state will hold a parliamentary election on November 1, the country's fifth in less than four years.
