“If we’re talking about the sports budget, there is plenty of money to bring a few Cushim to play basketball, but when its a budget for synagogues or ritual baths, there’s nothing."
The Times of Israel reports:
The son of a prominent rabbi used a racial slur Sunday to attack the government for not earmarking enough money for religious institutions.
“If we’re talking about the sports budget, there is plenty of money to bring a few Cushim to play basketball, but when its a budget for synagogues or ritual baths, there’s nothing,” Rabbi David Yosef said, employing a Hebrew epithet for black people that is considered by some to be the local equivalent of the “n-word.”
Yosef, the son of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, made his remarks at a ceremony marking the opening of an large new ritual bath, or mikvah, in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood.
David Yosef is the official rabbi of the mostly ultra-Orthodox neighborhood on the capital’s western edge.
During the ceremony, Yosef claimed that ultra-Orthodox “are class-D citizens, and don’t count anymore.”
“The yeshiva world is no longer a given. We are entering a very difficult period,” he told the crowd.
While highly critical of the Finance Ministry and its budget plans, Yosef had only praise for Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who was at the event.…
The secular Barkat has very carefully and deliberately sold out to haredim while attacking activists for women's rights and freedom of religion activists at almost every turn.
Barkat is up for re-election in October.
[Hat Tip: Rebitzman.]