{"id":716,"date":"2018-03-20T13:13:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T17:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=716"},"modified":"2018-03-21T13:16:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T17:16:03","slug":"chief-rabbi-calls-african-americans-monkeys-in-sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=716","title":{"rendered":"CHIEF RABBI CALLS AFRICAN-AMERICANS \u2018MONKEYS\u2019 IN SERMON"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BY\u00a0<span class=\"author\"><a class=\"author-name\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/authors\/callum-paton\" rel=\"author\">CALLUM PATON<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><time datetime=\"2018-03-20T12:53:45-04:00\">ON 3\/20\/18<\/time><\/p>\n<figure>\n<div id=\"moatPxCont3157\"><\/div>\n<picture class=\"mapping-medium\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mapping-medium\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s.newsweek.com\/sites\/www.newsweek.com\/files\/styles\/lg\/public\/2018\/03\/20\/gettyimages-493891511.jpg?resize=854%2C570\" alt=\"GettyImages-493891511\" width=\"854\" height=\"570\" \/><\/picture><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Pope Francis (rights) walks with Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef during a visit to Hechal Shlomo, a Jewish heritage center, in Jerusalem, on May 26, 2014. Yosef, one of Israel\u2019s most senior religious leaders, has stoked controversy after calling black people monkeys, seeming to specifically target black Americans during a sermon.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">AFP PHOTO\/ JACK GUEZ<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"social-share flex-xs flex-wrap ai-c\">\u00a0<span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\">One of Israel\u2019s most senior religious leaders, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, has stoked controversy after calling black people \u201cmonkeys,\u201d seeming to target black Americans\u00a0specifically during a sermon.<\/span>Yosef made the remarks in footage aired by the Israeli news site\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ynetnews.com\/articles\/0,7340,L-5182424,00.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ynet<\/a>, reportedly citing a hypothetical story about encountering a black person in the U.S. He then referred to black people using the pejorative Hebrew word \u201c<em>kushi\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and called a black person a \u201cmonkey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a response to the Israeli press, Yosef\u2019s office said there was a religious context to the comparison made in the rabbi\u2019s weekly sermon.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/chief-rabbi-compares-african-americans-to-monkeys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Times of Israel<\/a><\/em>, Yosef, who is the most senior rabbi in one of two mainstream strands of Orthodox Judaism, was addressing a religious legal question when he made the remarks.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the first time the religious leader has caused controversy with his sermons. In May 2017, Yosef compared secular women to animals because they dressed immodestly.<\/p>\n<p>In the same weekly sermon he warned Israeli soldiers that if they found themselves at events at which women were singing\u2014a &#8220;deliberate display of provocation&#8221;\u2014they should remove their glasses. Or, as Yosef had himself done at formal events, the men\u00a0should be seen to look away from the singing and read a book.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/chief-rabbi-implies-immodest-secular-women-are-like-animals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">March 2016<\/a>, Yosef was forced to retract a comment that non-Jews should not live in Israel. He said he was speaking theoretically and in practice non-Jews could live in Israel if they kept religious laws such as not committing idolatry and not eating the limbs from a live animal. He did add that non-Jews in Israel should serve Jews.<\/p>\n<p>Yosef is the most senior representative of the Sephardic Jews, who trace their origins to the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa\u00a0and the Middle East. Ashkenazi Jews, originally from Europe in those areas controlled by the Roman Empire, are led by Chief Rabbi David Lau.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY\u00a0CALLUM PATON\u00a0ON 3\/20\/18 Pope Francis (rights) walks with Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef during a visit to Hechal Shlomo, a Jewish heritage center, in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-21_13-15-04.jpg?fit=785%2C512&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-by","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":747,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=747","url_meta":{"origin":716,"position":0},"title":"Manhattan Attack Is Called Terrorism. 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