TEL AVIV - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, has died.
Yosef died Oct. 7 at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93.
He served as Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi from 1973 to 1983, and extended his influence over the ensuing decades as the spiritual leader of Shas, which politically galvanized hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Israelis, though Yosef himself never served in Knesset. In 1999, at its height, Shas was the third-largest Knesset party, with 17 seats.
Though he adhered to a haredi Orthodox ideology, Yosef, a charismatic speaker, published relatively liberal Jewish legal rulings and drew support both from traditional and secular Sephardic Israelis. Known to his followers as Maran, “our master” in Hebrew, Yosef’s main Jewish legal goal was to take diverse Jewish practices from the Middle East and North Africa and mold a “united legal system” for Sephardic Jews.
As his influence grew, Yosef presided over a veritable empire of Sephardi religious services. Shas opened a network of schools that now has 40,000 students. Yosef managed a kosher certification called Beit Yosef that has become the standard for many religious Sephardim. And he was a dominant power broker when it came to electing Sephardic chief rabbis and appointing Sephardic judges in religious courts. This year, Yosef’s son - and preferred candidate - won the Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi election.
Through his work, Yosef hoped to raise the status of Israel’s historically disadvantaged Sephardic community, both culturally and socioeconomically. He dressed in traditional Sephardic religious garb, including a turban and an embroidered robe, even as most of his close followers adopted the Ashkenazi haredi dress of a black fedora and suit.
As a scholar, Yosef was known for his ability to recite long, complex Jewish tracts from memory. His best-known works, “Yabia Omer,” “Yehave Da’at” and “Yalkut Yosef,” cover an array of Jewish legal topics.
“He was a character that people capitulated in front of, a man of Jewish law that created a political entity with strong influence on Israeli politics and culture,” said Menachem Friedman, an expert on the haredi community at Bar-Ilan University. “It raised up Middle Eastern Jewish culture, gave legitimacy to Middle Eastern Jewish traditions.”
Outside the religious community, Yosef was best known for his sometimes controversial political stances. His authority within Shas was virtually absolute, and even in his ninth decade he remained closely involved in the party’s decisions.
While Yosef favored policies that served the religious community’s interests, he also supported peace treaties involving Israeli withdrawal from conquered territory. He argued that such deals were allowed under Jewish law because they saved Jewish lives.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Shas joined left-wing governing coalitions multiple times, allowing for the advancement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process - though Yosef opposed the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip because it was done unilaterally.
In his later years, Yosef also stirred controversy with a number of inflammatory statements, often made at a weekly Saturday-night sermon. In 2000, he said that Holocaust victims were reincarnated sinners, and in 2005 he said that the victims of Hurricane Katrina deserved the tragedy “because they have no God.” In 2010, Yosef said, "The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews."
"Rabbi Ovadia was a giant in Torah and Jewish law and a teacher for tens of thousands," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Oct. 7. "He worked greatly to enhance Jewish heritage and at the same time, his rulings took into consideration the times and the realities of renewed life in the State of Israel. He was imbued with love of the Torah and the people."
Ovadia Yosef was born Abdullah Yosef in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sept. 23, 1920. Four years later his family moved to Jerusalem, in what was then Palestine, where Yosef studied at the Porat Yosef yeshiva, a well-regarded Sephardic school. At 20, he received ordination as a rabbinic judge, and at 24 he married Margalit Fattal. She died in 1994.
Yosef began serving as a rabbinic judge in 1944, and in 1947 moved to Cairo to head the rabbinic court in the Egyptian capital, returning in 1950. He continued serving as a religious judge until becoming Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1968, a position he held until he was elected Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel in 1973. During that period, he began publishing his well-known works, beginning with his Passover Haggadah, “Hazon Ovadia,” in 1952. In 1970, the government awarded him the prestigious Israel Prize in recognition of his books.
Yosef defeated a sitting chief rabbi in the 1973 election, itself a controversial move. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War that year, he ruled that women whose husbands were missing in action could remarry. Later in his term, he endorsed the Ethiopian Jews’ claim to Judaism, helping them immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.
Yosef founded Shas in 1984, one year after finishing his term as chief rabbi. The party now holds 11 Knesset seats.
Save for four years, Shas was part of every governing coalition between 1984 and 2013, acting as a kingmaker in Israeli politics. Because the party represents both haredi and poor Sephardim, it advocates a unique mix of dovish foreign policy, conservative religious policy and liberal economic policy. Yosef took an active role in shaping Shas through this year’s elections, heading a council of rabbis that chose the party’s slate and mediating leadership conflicts.
What was most impressive about Yosef, says Friedman, was his influence over almost every aspect of Sephardic religious and political life – making it unlikely that another rabbi will be able to take his place.
“He’ll create an empty space politically and an empty space religiously,” Friedman said. “He was a source of strength and great control in Middle Eastern Jewish religious society. I don’t know what will happen.”
In memory of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
| Over 800,000 Israelis attend Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's funeral |
Mourners crowd streets, sidewalks, rooftops and balconies in Jerusalem, blocking traffic • More than 300 receive medical treatment, 15 evacuated to hospitals • Police arrive from all over Israel to control crowds • "We are left without a father."
Yehuda Shlezinger
More than 800,000 Israelis attended Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's funeral in Jerusalem on Monday night
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Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel
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More than 800,000 people filled the streets of Jerusalem Monday for the funeral of Shas spiritual leader and former chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Yosef
died Monday at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem of complications from multiple organ failure. His health declined steadily following a mild stroke in January. He was hospitalized just over two weeks ago with a host of medical problems, including kidney and heart failure and sepsis. He was 93 years old.
Mourners crowded roofs, balconies, sidewalks and streets in Jerusalem for a final parting from Yosef. The Sephardi community -- including the ultra-Orthodox, religious, traditional and secular, as well as many from the national religious movement -- took part in a funeral of unprecedented magnitude in Jerusalem, or Israel.
Even before Yosef's body was taken to the Sanhedria cemetery, hundreds of thousands of people arrived in Jerusalem, causing huge traffic jams inside the city and around its entrances.
Jerusalem District police put into action the operational plan prepared when Yosef's health was reported to be deteriorating, and hundreds of policemen arrived from all over the country to reinforce security at the event. Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Yossi Pariente said that it was the biggest funeral the Jerusalem District police had ever dealt with. The police received 17,000 calls regarding traffic issues as compared with 5,000 on a regular day.
"There is no one like him in our generation and no one to take his place"
The funeral procession left from Yeshivat Porat Yosef, where Yosef studied from the age of 12 and where he began writing his religious books. It was repeatedly delayed due to concern for the crowd's safety. Even so, more than 300 people required medical treatment for fainting, dehydration and other injuries. Fifteen people were evacuated to hospitals for treatment.
At the yeshiva, Yosef's sons gave eulogies. "My father, my father, chariot of Israel and its knights," said his youngest son, Rabbi David Yosef, "today's sky is not the sky of yesterday, today's world is not yesterday's world." Rabbi Moshe Yosef, with whom Yosef lived, said, "When a stranger dies, one can give a sermon, but when a father dies, one can cry, one can scream. All I ask from you is forgiveness. Perhaps I did not know how to appreciate [you] enough."
"The crown has been removed, the crown has fallen, father to us all," cried Rabbi Avraham Yosef, "father, how many torches you left behind. You showed us the path of the patriarch Abraham, to open the tent to the four winds of the earth, to exonerate the masses, to reach the nation with tales. There is no one like him in our generation and no one to take his place."
Shas head Aryeh Deri, who Yosef redesignated as leader of the movement, delivered a moving speech: "Our rabbi, our rabbi, why have you left us? Forty years ago, we stood on these stairs at Yeshivat Porat Yosef, you and I, and I saw you felt the pain of Sephardi Jewry and the dismal situation facing the boys in Sephardi yeshivas. Then, there were only a few hundred boys in Sephardi yeshivas in all of Israel, and you understood their sorrow.
A man of action and vision, I saw in your holy eyes the vision of a true revolution, of the establishment of the Sephardi world of Torah, its upright establishment. And now, our rabbi, look how many hundreds of thousands are here to lead you on your final path. You have orphaned us. We are left now without a father and without a leader."
The decision of who, if anyone, will succeed Yosef as spiritual leader of Shas, will be made by a committee, Deri said. "We will continue to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of continuing the large enterprises you have begun in the biblical education system and the construction of Judaism for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
We know what you have always told us, to stay undivided and united. To continue to unite around the Council of Torah Sages, around the sages of Israel, to continue everything you started, and to do more and more to spread the word of the Torah and to help the poor. Thanks only to you, and only with your power."
Yosef was buried beside his late wife Margalit, who died in 1994.
