Ovadia Yosef

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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (born 1920) is a former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel. He is highly revered in the religious world, especially in the Sephardi and Mizrahi communities for his erudition and Torah scholarship.

Sourced

• Saving a life overrides territories.
  • Sentence according to Jewish law, 1979
  • Hebrew source

• It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable. […] The Lord shall return the Arabs' deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world.
  • Undated sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs; a Shas spokesman stated Yosef only meant "Arab murderers and terrorists"
  • "Rabbi calls for annihilation of Arabs". news.bbc.co.uk (BBC News). 10 April 2001. Retrieved on 2007-09-23. 

• There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, all of this because of too little Torah study. Where there is Torah it sustains the world. There are negros there [in New Orleans]. Negros will study Torah? Let's bring them a tsunami, drown them. Hundreds of thousands were left without a shelter. Tens of thousands died. All of this is because they have no God.
  • Regarding Hurricane Katrina, September 6, 2005
  • Alush, Zvi (7 September 2005). "Rabbi: Hurricane punishment for pullout". ynetnews.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-23. 
  • Hebrew source

Jewish law

• They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion.
  • "Israel rabbi in fallen troops row". BBC News. 27 August 2007.