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Live UpdateFrom the Liveblog of Sunday, October 1, 2023
Chief rabbi says secular Jews who eat non-kosher food ‘get stupid’
Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef speaks at the National Headquarters of the Israel Police in Jerusalem on September 22, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef says that secular Jews are “pitiable” and “stupid,” in comments made yesterday at his weekly sermon which were publicized earlier today on social media.
Secular Jews “don’t have any satisfaction in their life,” Yosef says. “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.”
Yosef says that secular Jews are “jealous of [Haredi Jews], it’s all jealousy… it all comes from jealousy and becomes hatred.”
Yosef also says that he believes the majority of Israeli Jews love Judaism, and that it was a “tiny minority” who took part in the protest against gender-segregated prayers in Tel Aviv over Yom Kippur.
