More than 700,000 people attended (the) funeral of Ovadia Yosef, Israel's former Sephardic Chief Rabbi, described by Prime Minister Netanyahu as "one of the wisest men of this generation."
The 700,000 Jews who turned-out for his funeral and mourned this man of unsurpassed hatred, this Jewish Racial Supremacist, represented about 8 % of the 9,000,000 Jews living in Israel.
Now, just imagine a Christian leader of America, filled with rage and hatred of Jews and publicly preaching that hatred, a White Supremacist who hated Jews, being praised by an American POTUS as one of the wisest men of this generation.
Then, imagine 8% of the 330,000,000 the American people, 2,640,000 of them, turning out to publicly mourn his death.
It is impossible to imagine such a thing but us Catholics have been told that The Jews are our friends.
With friends like these...
Late Sephardi spiritual leader made a range of inflammatory comments — involving snakes and sinners, gentiles and Blacks
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who died at 93, was a revered halachic scholar whose rulings found solutions for Jews caught in complex situations, brought countless Jews back to Torah observance, and unified the diverse Sephardi community.
But Yosef was also known for some highly problematic statements about Jews, Arabs, Americans, and others.
1) The ‘guilt’ of Jewish victims of the Holocaust:
“The six million Holocaust victims were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things which should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone.”
Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000
) Hurricane Katrina as divine punishment for godlessness and American support for the disengagement from Gaza:
“There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study… Black people reside there [New Orleans]. 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.”
“Bush was behind Gush Katif [the Gaza settlement bloc]. He encouraged Sharon to expel Gush Katif… We had 15,000 people expelled here, and there 150,000. It was God’s retribution… God does not short-change anyone.”
— Weekly Saturday night sermon in July 2005
The purpose of Gentiles — to serve Jews:
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”
“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.
“This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”
“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat… That is why gentiles were created.”
— Weekly Saturday night sermon in October 2010
4) On making peace with Arabs:
“How can you make peace with a snake?”
“Those evildoers, the Arabs — it says in the Gemara [Talmud] that God is sorry he ever created those sons of Ishmael.”
— Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000
) On Muslims:
“They’re stupid. Their religion is as ugly as they are.”
— Weekly Saturday night sermon in December 2009.
In 2010 he said of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the people he leads that "all these evil people should perish from this world. God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."
On Arabs in general, he said in 2001, "It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable." In 2009 he said of Muslims "their religion is as ugly as they are."
That sort of rhetoric, when heard from Arab or Iranian clerics directed towards Israelis or Jews in general is usually (and rightly) harshly condemned by Israeli leaders like Netanyahu as beyond the pale.
Yosef also had regressive views on the role of women and gays in society. In 2007, angry that many Ashkenazi rabbis supported allowing women to say a blessing over Shabbat candles after they'd been lit, he said: "Women should make (stew) and not deal with matters of the Torah." He said that any disagreement with him was the fault of "a few stupid women. A woman's knowledge is only in sewing."
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/article/taking-ecumenism-too-far/