With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

Saturday’s sermon by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, broadcast in Israel, was punctuated with continual laughter, riotous at times, from an audience clearly enjoying his message:

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world, only to serve the people of Israel…Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap.

We will sit like effendi and eat!”

The Rabbi, called by some “Madman Yosef” went on:

“With gentiles it will be like any person, they need to die but G-d will give them longevity.

Why?

Imagine that one’s donkey would die. They would lose profit. Their donkey is their servant. The goyim is like a donkey to the Jews, they exist only to serve and are only allowed by G’d to live a long life because they are the beast of burden the Jews. Were the goyim to stop serving Jews, g-d would end their lives”

Rabbi Yosef is the spiritual head of the Shas Party, a member of the Likud coalition, which won 11 seats in the recent election and supports Prime Minister Netanyahu. Oddly, however, the Shas Party claims that the Ashkenazi Jews, those of European dissent, wrongly control Israel and are not genuinely members of “g-d’s chosen.” Things have been rocky for the Shas Party as their former leader, Areh Dari, onetime Minister of the Interior, was jailed in 2000 for allegedly accepting bribes. Since that time, Shas has joined with the extremist Likud Party of Netanyahu.

Yosef is said to despise Netanyahu, an American born Ashkenazi, but accepts Likud rule based on similar views of the role of goyim in the world.