Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “an atheist,” and he and Shas leader Arye Deri are stalling the ultra-Orthodox draft bill, former Sephardi chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said on Saturday night.
He also said that the IDF is targeting Sephardim for arrests.
Speaking after a week of demonstrations outside a military prison that houses haredi detainees, Yosef said the coalition should have passed the draft law before approving its first budget, in line with the coalition agreement.
“It should have been before forming the government, as written in the coalition agreement, to pass the draft law before the first budget,” he said.
Yosef sharply criticized haredi lawmakers and Netanyahu, invoking the late Rabbi Shalom Cohen, who served as president of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages.
“Do not listen to Bibi [Netanyahu] after the budget. Why did they listen to him? If [Cohen] were alive, he would shout at the emissaries of the rabbis. Why are you dragging your feet? Why are you listening to Bibi? Do you believe him? He is an atheist,” Yosef said.
“You rely on someone like that? What are you relying on him... to pass the draft law? So more delays, and we got into trouble.”
He also took aim at the military’s recent round of arrests.
“They arrest mainly Sephardim. They know that there, the father is weak, the mother is weak,” he said, adding, “What is this, Russia? When they knock on the door, look through the peephole to see who it is. If it is them, do not open the door. Get through this difficult period.”
Previous Controversies
Yosef has a long record of provocative statements that often incite public debate. In January 2020, he drew widespread condemnation for referring to some immigrants from the former Soviet Union as “communist, religion-hating” gentiles. Netanyahu called those remarks “outrageous” and praised the immigrants as “a huge blessing to the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
In mid-2021, Yosef dismissed secular academic subjects, labeling science and mathematics “nonsense,” and urged that students focus solely on Torah study.