Ovadia Yosef Comes A Cropper

Rabbi Yosef

new.bbc.co.uk

When my brother said adieu to the slammer, he asked me what was up in the world. So I said something like Nihil Novi Sub Sole and Semper Ubi Sub Ubi, saying that it was same old same old.

"Hmmm...", he pondered. "Everyone at each others' throats?"

"It goes without saying."

He mused. He said he no longer remembered what it was like before 2001, 9/11 type 2001.

"Was there history?" he asked.

"Oh, I pretty much think there was," I replied.

So we decided to look back into the days when all was peace and fairness.

We came across the above.

On April 10, 2001 - well before 9/11- we find the genial fellow at work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1270038.stm

Rabbi calls for annihilation of Arabs

The spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has provoked outrage with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs. "It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable," he was quoted as saying in a sermon delivered on Monday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover.

On July 21, 2001 in NewsMax:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/7/27/122828.shtml

Arabs Should 'Go to Hell,' Top Israeli Rabbi Says "In the old city of Jerusalem they're swarming like ants. They should go to hell - and the Messiah will speed them on their way," said Rabbi Ovadia Yossef during his a weekly sermon broadcast over Israeli army radio, according to Agence France Presse.

As far as we can tell, he lives yet.

In Wikipedia, we see " In 2005, Rabbi Yosef repeatedly condemned the Gaza Disengagement. He argued that he was opposed to any unilateral action that occurred outside the framework of a peace agreement. Rabbi Yosef again cited the principle of pikuach nefesh, saying that empowering the Palestinians without a commitment to end terror would result in threatening Jewish lives, particularly in areas near Gaza in range of Qassam rocket attacks. "

Therefore, the Rabbi is not mad. He is eminently sane. And yet he equates peoples to ants, rendering them sub-human. I forget the Hebrew for things that crawl upon the face of the earth. There is a word...Avivah Zornberg discusses it in her wonderful The Beginning of Desire, her study of Genesis.

My brother said, "It was better back in jail. Not so much fighting."

( We hope the mention of such a wonderful person as Ms. Zornberg will do some little bit to dispel the miasma left by writing of the Rabbi Yosef.)