Hardline rabbi know for overt hostility toward modern Orthodox, secular Israeli Jews appointed successor of late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
Shas appointed Rabbi Shalom Cohen on Thursday night as the new spiritual leader of the Orthodox, Sephardi faction
Cohen – a hardline rabbi known for his overt hostility toward modern Orthodox and secular Israeli Jews – replaced his predecessor, Rabbi Ovaia Yosef, who died last October.
Cohen, leader of the Porat Yosef religious seminary, was named president of the Shas Council of Torah Sages on Thursday at a ceremony in Bnei Brak neat Tel Aviv, Army Radio reported.
Shortly after being announced as Yosef’s successor, Cohen reiterated his criticism of Israeli Jews who are not haredi.
“They hate us, all the ignoramuses of the Jewish home and Yesh Atid,” Cohen said, referencing the Zionist, Orthodox Bayit Yehudi party headed by Naftali Bennett and the secularist Yesh Atid party headed by Yair Lapid, respectively.
“There is no difference between the two. The Ha-Kadosh barukh Hu [God] wants us to stay away from them. They are there, we are here. They will pursue their nonsense, we will pursue our holy Torah,” he added.
Cohen, who is considered a close ally of Shas political boss Aryeh Deri, last year called Zionist Orthodox Jews “Amalek” — an extinct people that the Torah singles out for total annihilation for what is described as their cruelty to Jews.
According to Army Radio analyst Yair Sharki, Cohen’s first speech as spiritual leader marked a more separatist hardline world view than that of Yosef.
Shas’ political party, the “World Union of Sefardi Observers of the Torah,” currently has 11 seats out of 120 in the Knesset and is not part of the coalition. Its pragmatic approach to issues connected to security and peace and other subjects that are not connected to religion and welfare has allowed it to join rightist as well as leftist coalitions, where it has used its clout to promote the movement’s massive welfare and religious education systems.
Read more (JPost)
What does it mean? (Commentary from HN News editor) This new leader of the Shas political party is a hardliner. They have elevated the STUDY of Torah and the following of rabbinic Talmud above all else. However, when it comes to WALKING in the torah, and LIVING it out, by EMBRACING the covenant that Yahweh made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people from the political party, Jewish Home…THEY are the biblical zionists who are REFUSING to go along with dividing the land for a Palestinian state. They are the ones who are rising up to DEFEND the homeland and protect the homeland from enemies of Israel who would want to wipe them off the map. Rabbi Shalom Cohen is closely associated with Shas political boss Aryeh Deri. Last year, Aryeh Deri called Zionist Orthodox Jews “Amalek” — an extinct people that the Torah singles out for total annihilation for what is described as their cruelty to Jews. The chasm between the ultra orthodox political party, Shas, and the biblical zionist party, Jewish Home, just got much wider and deeper.