The rackety side of Israel's Orthodox Judaism

Minister of Interior Eli Yishai pays obeisance to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,  ‘spiritual leader’ of the Shas political party, Jerusalem December 2009.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: Racist, Political Boss, Yes. “Spiritual Leader?” Not So Much

By Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam
October 08, 2013

The NY Times and Israeli media are filled with articles memorializing Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who died at the age of 93 two days ago. He was the leader of the Shas movement. It’s hard to pin down precisely what Shas is. Certainly a political movement with Knesset members who dish out traditional pork-like (in the sense of politics, not food) benefits. Certainly a movement that offers Mizrahi Jews a strong measure of ethnic pride. But is it a religious movement? Does Yosef deserve the title, “Israel’s spiritual leader,” which the Times and so many others have accorded him?

To the extent that Shas followers are Orthodox (and most are), it is a religious movement. But that phrase deserves an asterisk. Though Yosef was a rabbi and his followers were observant Jews, Shas is a hybrid (or more aptly, a mongrel). Shas’ real significance isn’t so much its religious role as its political one. It is a power base for Mizrahi Jews, who are shut out of Israel’s mainstream in so many other ways. Shas, like Hamas, is all things to its followers: it gets them jobs, offers them welfare, educates their children, offers all manner of support. It’s a combination of the Vatican and Tammany Hall. It’s motto (in American slang) might be: “Gonna get me mine.”

Judaism as practiced in Israel by many of its Orthodox adherents is little more than a racket. Rabbis competing to be chief rabbi physically assault their opponents and heap epithets on them. These learned sages operate their fiefdoms like little feudal barons doling out lucrative kashrut certifications, preventing men and women from marrying, divorcing, or attaining citizenship sometimes based on little more than whim or prejudice. In the case of Women of the Wall, these rabbis enlist the Israeli police to rough up and arrest their Jewish enemies in order to prevent them from access to religious sites.

Returning to Shas and Yosef, if Israel was not such a racist, hierarchical society, then Mizrahim would be far-better integrated and enjoy a higher level of success and achievement. Then corrupt (Shas’ penultimate leader went to jail on a corruption charge), pork-barrel groups like Shas wouldn’t have to exist. But Israel is dominated by Ashkenazim who control power, both political and economic.

One thing’s for sure: calling Ovadia Yosef a “spiritual leader” does a grave disservice to those who truly are spiritual leaders. Even Yosef’s religious edicts were highly politicized. Some years ago, just after Hurricane Katrina virtually destroyed New Orleans, Yosef told his believers that the Hurricane wiped out the city because African-Americans neglected their Bible study and because George Bush supported the Gaza withdrawal. Which of course is laughable because African-Americans, one of America’s most highly-churched groups, know their Bible far better than their Jewish counterparts. Yosef also taught that non-Jews were created by the Lord to serve Jews. And he meant this literally and even used the term “donkey” as a comparison.

Reuters adds these other “bon mots” of the saintly rabbi:

Dubbed ‘Israel’s Ayatollah’ by critics who condemned many of his pronouncements as racist – he likened Palestinians to snakes…

“Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this world,” Yosef said in a sermon in 2010, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians.”

Yosef also drew fire from Israelis when he once suggested that six million Jews had died in the Nazi Holocaust because they were reincarnated souls of sinners.

No doubt, Yosef’s followers saw him as a saintly figure. A friend who is a learned Orthodox Jew actually long ago admired Yosef for what he called his “progressive” halachic rulings. Here is a Facebook posting from a Bar Ilan University graduate offering his own encomium:

The most significant religious-spiritual authority since the state of Israel formed, and the greatest icon of the sefaradi judaism, beyond being a leading and breakthrough religious arbiter in the eyes of the historic judaism.

If he had retired from public life twenty years ago, he might rightly be lauded for his positive role. But instead, he lingered and made a laughingstock out of himself, Shas, and those Mizrahim who worshipped him.

700,000 Israelis attended his funeral. When you consider that only 20-30% of Israel’s 7-million are Orthodox, it’s a remarkable number, indicating that some secular Jews also admired him. But that is only 10% of all Israelis and an even smaller percentage of world Jewry. So I think a high level of skepticism is called for in according Yosef an honor most Jews did not believe he deserved.

Someone ought to tell erstwhile progressive New York mayoral candidate, Bill deBlasio who and what he’s endorsing in lamenting the late rabbi’s passing:

Bill de Blasio’s office issued a statement hailing the “wisdom, charity and sensitivity” of [Rabbi Yosef].

Note that New York City electoral politics are, in some senses, not that dissimilar from Israeli politics. Democratic candidates all have to kowtow to the Lubavitcher rebbe and in this case, the large Sephardi population in Brooklyn devoted to Yosef. These religious communities tend to vote en masse and as the “spiritual leader” tells them to. Just as with Yosef and Shas!

The following is precisely the sort of inflated assessment that Yosef does not deserve:

“He was the rabbi of all the Jewish people, not just of one sector,” said Tel Aviv’s Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau.

If you do want to call him that, then Yosef was the rabbi of a racist, hateful religion that disdained non-Jews as something less than human. Is that what we believe about Judaism? Not my Judaism, that’s for sure. Rav Yosef no more represents Judaism than Osama bin Laden represents Islam.

Notes and links
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: A mixed legacy
Along with his virtues and achievements, Yosef will also be remembered as a man who contributed a great deal to the polarization and division of Israeli society. Ha’aretz editorial, October 8th, 2013

Some of Wikipedia’s list of Rabbi Yosef’s ‘controversial statements’
In 2000, he described the Holocaust as God’s retribution against the reincarnated soul of Jewish sinners: “The six million Holocaust victims were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things that should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone.”

In 2009, Yosef repeated his claims that the holocaust was retribution for re-incarnated sinners: “After all, people are upset and ask why was there a Holocaust? Woe to us, for we have sinned. Woe to us, for there is nothing we can say to justify it,” he said. “It goes without saying that we believe in reincarnation… It is a reincarnation of those souls… All those poor people in the Holocaust we wonder why it was done. There were righteous people among them. Still, they were punished because of sins.”

Israeli soldiers killed in battle
In 2007, Yosef said: “It is no wonder that soldiers are killed in war; they don’t observe Shabbat, don’t observe the Torah, don’t pray every day, don’t lay phylacteries on a daily basis – so is it any wonder that they are killed? No, it’s not”.

In 2013, Yosef called for yeshiva students to emigrate from Israel rather than agree to serve in the army, stating: “God forbid, we will be compelled to leave the land of Israel … in order to free the yeshiva students” from being drafted.

Woman’s role In 2007, Yosef said: “A woman’s knowledge is only in sewing … Women should find other jobs and make hamin but not deal with matters of Torah.”

In 2011, Yosef said on the subject of women as soldiers: “Women cannot go to war… If a woman runs over a cat with a car, she begins crying.” On the other hand, “a man is a man – give him a task and he will do it.”

Hurricane Katrina. Yosef blamed the tragedy on U.S. support for the Gaza disengagement, and on a general lack of Torah study in the area where the hurricane occurred:
“There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study… Black people reside there . Blacks will study the Torah? [God said], Let’s bring a tsunami and drown them… Hundreds of thousands remained homeless. Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God….It was God’s retribution…”

( Yosef used  the Hebrew word “Kushim” to refer to the black people of New Orleans which in biblical Hebrew refers to an ancient African people and in contemporary Hebrew it may be used derogatorily.)

Gentiles’ role In an October 2010 sermon, Yosef stated that “The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews”. He said that Gentiles served a divine purpose: “Why are Gentiles needed? They will work, they will plough, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why Gentiles were created…Gentiles were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”

Scandal in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s family rocks Shas

This is Wikipedia’s list of some of the scandals involving  Shas leader Eli Yishai:
In 2006, Yishai was subjected to criticism after he claimed that negative results from the 2006 Lebanon War were a consequence of soldiers not being as religiously observant as they were in the past.

Yishai has been accused of negligence in the wake of Israel’s deadly forest fire in December 2010, prompting calls to resign.

In May 2009, he refused to allow the Holy See to exercise jurisdiction over Christian holy sites in Israel, an agreement which would have resolved disputes over the implementation of the 1993 Fundamental Accord. That November, Yishai argued that African refugee migrants to Israel should not be allowed to settle permanently in Israel because they bring in “a range of diseases such as hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis and AIDS.” However, the Jerusalem Post reviewed Israeli Ministry of Health data, and concluded that there was a relatively low infection rate among asylum-seekers.

In a June 2012 interview with the Israeli daily Maariv, Yishai was quoted as saying: “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.”

Yishai declared Günter Grass, the German Nobel laureate, as persona non grata on 8 April 2012, four days after the publication of his poem “Was gesagt werden muss” (“What Must Be Said”).

On 17 November 2012, Yishai stated about Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza: “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” He also was quoted as saying “We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”