The Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, gave a live-streamed Torah lecture on Saturday night in which he said that people who eat non-kosher “get stupid” and are jealous of Observant Jews.
“A person who eats non-kosher food, his brain gets stupid, he can’t understand things, doesn’t get it. As soon as he starts keeping kosher, you can start to influence him,” he said. “[I] see everything that is going on in the secular public, and they are miserable. They are dissatisfied with their lives. It’s all about lust… It’s incredible… You can see the permissiveness in the secular public, as well as the problems it causes.”
Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef.
The Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, accused secular Jews of being “miserable” while claiming that those eating non-kosher food become “stupid.”
“A person who eats non-kosher food, his brain gets stupid, he can’t understand things, doesn’t get it. As soon as he starts keeping kosher, you can start to influence him,” he said during a sermon that was leaked on social media on Sunday and translated by Haaretz.
Rabbi Yosef said he “sees everything that is going on in the secular public, and they are miserable. They are dissatisfied with their lives. It’s all about lust… It’s incredible… You can see the permissiveness in the secular public, as well as the problems it causes.”
“They are envious of us, you know, it’s all jealousy. They see the ultra-Orthodox public, they have holidays, they have children, and we go out on holidays with them… Everything starts with jealousy, and jealousy breeds hatred,” he added.
“They have been secular for several generations, but we need to bring them closer [to God]. This is what… is being done by all kinds of different organizations that are bringing them closer. This is what needs to be done,” he said. “It’s unbelievable, but we need to bring them closer [to Judaism]. What some organizations are thankfully doing—bringing them closer and returning them to repentance. This is what needs to be done and this is what my father [former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] did,” he added.
Rabbi Yosef said he believed the majority of Israeli Jews love Judaism and noted that only a “tiny minority” took part in the protest against the gender-separate prayers in Tel Aviv.
