A very senior Sefardi haredi Shas Party rabbinic leader accused Zionist
Orthodox Jews of being “Amalek,” the biblical archenemy of the Jewish
people and intimated that they should be wiped out, just as the biblical
Amalek is supposed to killed by the Jewish people.
Rabbi Sholom Cohen
Senior Sefardi Haredi Rabbi Calls Zionist Orthodox Jews “Amalek”
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A very senior Sefardi haredi Shas Party rabbinic leader accused Zionist Orthodox Jews of being “Amalek,” the biblical archenemy of the Jewish people and intimated that they should be wiped out, just as the biblical Amalek is supposed to killed by the Jewish people.
“The Throne [of God] is not complete as long as there are Amalek…when will the Throne [of God] be complete? When there are no more [Zionist Orthodox Jews],” Sholom Cohen, a senior member of the Sefardi haredi political party’s Council of Torah Sages and the rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem’s old city, said last night in a videoed lecture.
Cohen’s remarks were made as Sefardi haredi leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of Shas and the had of its Council of Torah Sages, sat next to him.
Yosef did not object to Cohen’s remarks or seek to clarify them in any way.
According to a report on the Times of Israel website, the right wing Zionist Orthodox HaBayit HaYehudi Party’s Chairman, Naftali Bennett, who is also Israel’s Religious Services Minister, lashed out at Cohen and Yosef today in a Facebook post.
“Shame on you.…For those who don’t know, Amalek is an expression referring to someone who must be wiped off the face of the earth. No less. At this very moment, thousands of knit-kipa wearers are standing guard from the Syrian border to the Egyptian, from brigade commanders down to the lowliest soldiers, and are spitting blood to defend even the honorable rabbi…In these very days, memorial services are being held for my comrades-in-arms who sacrificed their lives in the [2006] Second Lebanon War, some of them secular and others wearers of knit kippot. Some of them fell in ways that earned them medals for valor. The rabbi is calling them, too, Amalek, for God’s sake,” Bennett wrote.
Bennett also noted Yosef’s silence and his failure to distance himself from or condemn Cohen's remarks.