‘Only’ 450,000 at Yosef funeral, some experts claim

Experts said Tuesday that no more than 450,000 people attended Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s funeral on Monday. Police estimates had put the figure at close to 850,000, regarded as the largest funeral in Israeli history.

According to a Channel 2 News report, unnamed experts asserted that of the 600,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, only about a third were estimated to have taken part in the burial services, while road and transport limitations would have only enabled an additional 250,000 from outside the capital to arrive in the relevant time period.

Israeli high-tech start up company Trendit, which maps population movement by tracking cellular data, claimed that the number was much lower, and that only 273,000 people attended the funeral service, Israellycool blog reported.

Trendit’s statistics are based on cross-referencing raw data with demographic and statistical data in order to generate what is described by the company as Population Analytics, the report stated.

Yosef, the powerful former Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of the Shas party, died Monday at the age of 93.