Sephardic Chief Rabbi Insists All Cigarettes Kosher For Passover
Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi ruled that it is permitted to smoke cigarettes that are not certified as kosher for Passover during the holiday.
Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said in a satellite television broadcast that cigarettes do not need to be certified as leaven-free for Passover, though some cigarettes manufactured in Israel or abroad are certified as kosher for Passover.
He appeared to be responding to questions about whether American cigarettes need to be certified as kosher, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Yosef seemed to base part of his ruling on the fact that leaven is not forbidden if a dog will not eat it.
“If you put a cigarette in front of a dog, who is always hungry – he will eat anything. But put a cigarette in front him, will he smoke it? He won’t touch it,” the rabbi said in the Hebrew-language broadcast.
Yosef did indicate that it is better not to even start smoking, but added that if a person is already addicted, he doesn’t need certification.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward An Israeli think tank used AI to analyze 4,400 American synagogue sermons. Here’s what it found.
-
Fast Forward Antisemitic incidents on college campuses rose over 80 percent last year, says the ADL
-
Fast Forward As the last generation of Holocaust survivors ages, advocates call for their testimonies to be heard
-
Fast Forward Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed a Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus arrests
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Will the next pope be good for the Jews?
-
Yiddish איבערזעצערין קאַרעד אָברײַען שרײַבט בוך וועגן די שטערן סימאָר רעכטצײַט און מרים קרעסיןTranslator Caraid O’Brien writing book on Yiddish stars Seymour Rechtseit and Miriam Kressyn
זי שטעלט אויך צונויף אַ פּאָדקאַסט מיטן בראָדװײ־אַקטיאָר האַל ראָבינסאָן אין דער ראָלע פֿון רעכטצײַט.
-
BINTEL BRIEF How do you deal with invitations from someone whose behavior drives you nuts?
-
Fast Forward An Israeli think tank used AI to analyze 4,400 American synagogue sermons. Here’s what it found.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.