The Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel called black people “monkeys” during his weekly sermon on Saturday evening. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef was addressing Jewish legal aspects of the blessing on seeing fruit trees blossoming, during the current Hebrew month of Nissan, and, specifically, whether one should bless one tree or at least two. In a sermon delivered in May last year, he appeared to suggest during his weekly sermon that secular woman behave like animals because they dress immodestly. Non-Jews, Yosef said, are in Israel only to serve Jews. Yosef represents those with origins in the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Middle East, and David Lau represents Ashkenazic Jews, with origins in European lands of the Roman Empire.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 20, 2018 11:50 UTC