Maariv’s ace reporter Ben Kaspit reports in an article (Hebrew only) posted on the paper’s Web site Thursday morning that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual mentor of the Shas party, has endorsed a freeze on new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem in order to maintain good relations with the United States. According to Kaspit, Yosef…
A former Chief Sephardic Rabbi and current spiritual leader of Israel’s Shas religious political party, Rav Ovadia Yosef, in his weekly sermon last Saturday night called women who wear prayer shawls to daven at the Western Wall “stupid” and “deviants.” He was speaking of Women of the Wall, a group of devoted and, dare I…
An absurd argument over blessing snack food may help decide the future leader of Jerusalem’s Sephardi movement. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi David Yosef, the two sons of Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Jerusalem Ovadia Yosef, leading Sephardi authority and spiritual leader of the political group Shas, have long fought over inheriting their elderly father’s kingdom….
One of Israel’s most influential Orthodox rabbis has ruled that women may read — and write — the Scroll of Esther. In a Torah class on Saturday night, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef challenged the mainstream Orthodox view that the Scroll of Esther, which both genders are obliged to listen to on the upcoming festival of Purim,…
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