"…In
one ruling, [Rabbi Avraham Yosef] disqualified any man who serves as a judge in the
civil court system from being numbered as one of 10 men who make up a prayer
quorum (minyan).…Yosef also ruled that it is
forbidden to appoint women to public positions such as mayors of cities. Female
kindergarten teachers are prohibited, according to Yosef, from speaking before
groups of men in parent-teacher meetings or end-of-year parties."
Rabbi Avraham Yosef
Besides the well-known racism of possible Sefardi chief rabbi candidate Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, another candidate for that position also has a very problematic background – Sefardi haredi leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's son, the chief rabbi of the Israeli city of Holon, Rabbi Avraham Yosef.
The Jerusalem Post sums up some of the younger Yosef's troubling rulings:
…In one ruling, [Rabbi Avraham Yosef] disqualified any man who serves as a judge in the civil court system from being numbered as one of 10 men who make up a prayer quorum (minyan). According to Yosef, it is forbidden for a Jew to seek justice in Israel’s civil court system and he must instead avail himself of religious courts that rule in accordance with Halacha.
Yosef also ruled that it is forbidden to appoint women to public positions such as mayors of cities. Female kindergarten teachers are prohibited, according to Yosef, from speaking before groups of men in parent-teacher meetings or end-of-year parties.
Yosef and another candidate – Safed’s Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu – have both ruled that it is forbidden for Jews to rent or sell houses or land to non-Jews in Israel.…
Some people think that convicted felon Aryeh Deri – who was convicted on public corruption and related charges, serving a significant prison sentence as a result, and who is now, post-conviction, again the chairman of the Sefardi haredi Shas Party – is maneuvering the process of leaks about Yosef, Eliyahu and another possible candidate, Rabbi Ratzon Arusi. And Deri is thought to be the man who blocked passage of the proposed law that would have allowed current Sefardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar to run for a second 10-year term.
Why?
Because Deri wants to get his almost unknown own brother elected to the chief rabbi position, and is attempting to destroy the candidacy of everyone else to do it.
Of course, none of this changes the fact that all of these candidates are, to put it mildly, problematic in their own right.