Comments on: Ovadia Yosef’s Blinding Bloopers

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:48:50 +0000

or Gateshead, or Baltimore. Israel has many of the world's top yeshivah bachurim, and the Diaspora Torah world would be proud to have such young men.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:44:16 +0000

Those of us involved in journalism know how easy it is for tabloids to take bits and pieces out of context to grab public attention. The Israeli media tend to be anti- rabbinical and anti-Sephardi. Rav Yosef is the senior Sephardi rabbi, so he gets twice the flack.

By: Laurent-Darius Salimpour

Laurent-Darius Salimpour — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:05:27 +0000

Shame on Shas: back to Middle-Ages Obscurantism!!!

By: Marc Goldberg

Marc Goldberg — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:44:57 +0000

More importantly, I'm not sure how or why you managed to tie this into Iran???!!
This is a man who wields tremendous power and yet says utterly nonsensical things, the Jpost seem to have reporter going to his weekly sessions specifically to hear what nonsense he is going to come out with next.

And out of context really, that's the best you can do?

By: Meir Liberman

Meir Liberman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 19:52:22 +0000

K, perhaps "never had a blooper" was overzealous. But the quotes above are not bloopers in my opinion anyway.

By: Meir Liberman

Meir Liberman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 19:25:10 +0000

I'm not sure why anybody feels it necessary to write pieces like this. Is it to say "Look! We have an Ayatollah too!"?

For what it's worth, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is nothing like the Ayatollah. He is far more learned than the religious leader of Iran. Neither does he have genocidal intentions as the Ayatollah does.

What he DOES have is a tremendous respect for the Torah. While I obviously cannot agree blanketly with everything he says, he has not ever had a "blooper" and his accomplishments are nothing to scoff at.

That magazines feel a need to hang on to his every word, and then publish them out of context, shows their disconnect with the Hareidi Jews and their (These news sources (of which I do not include Haaretz as news)) excitement at demonizing them (Hariedim).

By: Mildred Bilt

Mildred Bilt — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:34:01 +0000

The statement about the "goyem" resounded around the US like a bombshell. That's what first drew my attention to this would be "effendi". Then I read about the sins of the 6 million in a prior life who were killed including one million babies and children. This man is no rabbi. This man is not a Jew. He is incarnate evil and must be expelled from the land before the holy soil is totally contaminated. How can the leaders and fighters for Israel be so blind to this internal rot? The world is looking at Israel and what they see is this miserable wretch. Yet Israel blames the world for forming their judgements based on their subservience to this madman.

By: Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:25:52 +0000

Fine, friend…but why address your comment to me? (If you'll note, my comment could arguably be considered to fall under the heading of a "dig"…or "damnation by faint praise"…and I…for various reasons…am NOT a fan of the gentleman in question.)

By: Finally Free

Finally Free — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:03:03 +0000

"The six million “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.”" This statement is the point at which I decided not to sully the title "rabbi" anymore by applying it to Abdallah Yusuf/Ovadia Yosef.

By: Finally Free

Finally Free — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:00:56 +0000

hey, what do you have against these communities that you want to send them Ayatollah Abdallah Yusuf?

(incidentally, that what Hassan Nasrallah, y"shg, once called him — as a literal translation to Arabic of Ovadia Yosef — on live TV while quoting his then-recent drivel in the Independent with approval.)

By: Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:56:23 +0000

What you might be referring to, Marc, is often called "peer pressure"…which is (and has been) a constant in human society for as long as we have been around…and has led to such things as "aw, shucks, Joe, that wasn't real nice to say"…all the way to…burning some poor fu*ker at THE STAKE!

By: Marc Goldberg

Marc Goldberg — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:39:52 +0000

I saw a comment elsewhere that made me think that people might actually not want to 'like' this piece out of fear as to how it would be received elsewhere, I wonder to what extent that's true.

By: Tuvia Fogel

Tuvia Fogel — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:10:15 +0000

Many worse things could happen to the country than Rabbi Yosef and a few thousand yeshiva bocherim moving to Brooklyn, or Antwerp, or Stamford Hill…

By: Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:05:22 +0000

Marc…the ONE thing I don't think ANYONE can honestly accuse Rabbi Yosef of…is…"EVASIVENESS."