Some 40,000 people participated in a memorial for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in Jerusalem at the end of the mourning period. The memorial on Sunday evening at the grave site of the Shas party spiritual leader marked the end of the seven-day shiva period for the one-time Sephardic chief rabbi, who died on Oct. 7 at…
Will Shas, Israel’s largest ultra-Orthodox political party, survive the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Sephardic religious leader whose towering authority enabled him to found the party and unite its followers behind his will? Some political analysts are casting their glances backward in looking for clues — specifically, to the 1994 death of the Lubavitcher…
New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio was dragged into a tabloid fight over the legacy of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef after the liberal Democrat expressed his sympathies for the death of the Israeli Sephardic leader. The New York Post slammed de Blasio for the boilerplate condolence message, noting it ignored Yosef’s history of attacks on…
News of the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a towering religious and political figure in Israel, plunged millions into mourning. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Yosef “was imbued with love for Torah and his people.” President Shimon Peres cut short a meeting with Czech Prime Minister upon hearing of Rav Ovadia’s death. Ordinary people fainted…
(JTA) — I didn’t need to ask directions. Stepping out of the Central Bus Station, I saw them, men in hats and coats walking together slowly, a steady stream moving east along one of Jerusalem’s central thoroughfares to the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. At 5 p.m., an hour before the funeral, the streets were already…
More than 800,000 people filled the streets of Jerusalem for the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Sephardi sage and political leader who died at age 93. Many of Jerusalem’s main streets were closed for Monday’s funeral, which is being called by local media the largest funeral in Israeli’s history. The attendees, equal to about…
More than half a million mourners turned out on Monday for the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, an Iraqi-born sage who transformed an Israeli underclass of Sephardic Jews of Middle East heritage into a powerful political force. Jerusalem’s police chief said the funeral for Yosef, who died earlier on Monday aged 93, was the biggest…
Ovadia Yosef, the rabbi responsible for turning religiously observant Sephardic Jews from a marginalized minority into one of Israel’s most politically powerful groups, has died at age 93. Yosef was widely revered as a kind of living saint during his lifetime. He inspired adoring love songs extolling his virtues, and his death is expected to…
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