Local Holocaust survivors reacted with shock and outrage to the statements of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, that Jews murdered in the Holocaust were the reincarnated souls of sinners.
“If the 6 million would know that a rabbi, especially an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, or any Jew, would make such a statement, they would turn in their graves. But they don’t have graves, their remains went up in smoke,” said Eddy Wynschenk, a San Bruno survivor who lost his entire family in the camps.
The spiritual leader of Israel’s fervently religious Shas Party is now caught in a firestorm of condemnation and ridicule.
Although Yosef attempted to soften his comments on Sunday by saying that all the Jewish victims of the Nazis “were holy and pure and complete saints,” one outraged man was arrested on suspicion of threatening to murder the spiritual mentor on Monday.
The suspect had come to the vicinity of Yosef’s home in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, and asked a passer-by for the exact address. He then allegedly said he intended to “put a bullet in [Yosef’s] head.”
Police summoned to the scene arrested the man.
During his weekly sermon on Saturday, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef also referred to the Palestinians as “snakes.”
Prime Minister Ehud Barak, also targeted in Yosef’s remarks, said the statements were not fitting for a rabbi of his standing.
During a weekly cabinet meeting, Barak criticized the Shas Party as well as Yosef. “From a movement whose banner is emblazoned with the demand for unity and closeness, its leaders should speak in a manner that would strengthen this claim,” Barak said.
Referring to Barak’s efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians at the Camp David summit, Yosef said, “Where are this man’s brains?” Addressing Barak, the rabbi added, “You bring snakes next to us. How can you make peace with a snake?” He also called Arabs “evildoers.”
This is not the first time Yosef’s comments have sparked controversy. Last Purim, Yosef likened Yossi Sarid, the leader of the secular Meretz Party, to the evil Haman in the Book of Esther, and he called on supporters to wish for Sarid’s destruction.
In the latest incident, as in previous ones, Shas leaders said the rabbi’s remarks were taken out of context.
“Don’t take a monopoly on interpretation of the Holocaust,” a Shas legislator said in an Israeli radio interview. “The rabbi’s commentary was based on Judaism.”
Some people — including President Moshe Katsav and Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau — said the concept of reincarnation is an attempt to understand why the Holocaust happened.
But Lau, himself a Holocaust survivor, said that perhaps the pain of the tragedy of the Holocaust is still too acute for comments such as Yosef’s. He defended the Shas rabbi, saying Yosef has a very “emotional attitude” toward the Holocaust and that he did not say that the victims of the Holocaust were sinners.
“I did not hear the lesson, but certainly he would not accuse any of the 6 million,” Lau told Israel Radio. “He tried to give further understanding to what happened there.”
Katsav said he does not intend to go into the theological basis of Yosef’s remarks, but condemned any statements that hurt people’s feelings. “At this time, we must make every effort to reduce tension and demonstrate more unity,” said Katsav, who vowed to pursue tolerance and national unity when he was sworn in last week as Israel’s eighth president.
The comments were interpreted by some political observers as an indication that Shas is not inclined to rejoin Barak’s government after bolting the coalition on the eve of the failed Camp David summit.
In the past, the Shas Party has supported the peace process, maintaining that giving land to the Palestinians could be justified because it would increase Israel’s security and save Jewish lives.
Yosef’s remarks also drew criticisms from Palestinian officials and Jewish community leaders from around the world.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian information minister, said, “The statements of this idiot and racist are a disgrace for every Israeli.”
Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi said his party would ask Israel’s attorney general to consider pressing charges against Yosef. “It reminds me of what the Nazis said about the Jews.”
Italy’s best known Jewish leader blasted Yosef for saying the Holocaust was God’s punishment against Jewish sinners.
“The whole argument that the evildoers were doing the right thing is ludicrous and scandalous,” said Tullia Zevi, former president of Italy’s Jewish communities and a leading figure in the European Jewish Congress.
Zevi, who is currently in charge of intercultural and interreligious relations for the European Jewish Congress, said Yosef’s remarks “only encourage intolerance.”
“The idea that the Nazis were divine instruments to punish Jews for being reincarnated sinners is intolerable for me as a woman and as a former lay leader of a Jewish community,” she said.
Wynscheck pointed out that 1.5 million of the Nazi’s victims were children. “What kind of sinner was my little niece?” he asked.
When the Germans rounded up Jews, he added, they did not care whether they were Orthodox or not.
“My anger and pain is not for me personally, I have to live with that regardless of this statement from the ultra-Orthodox rabbi,” said Wynschenk, who has long lectured at area schools about his experiences. “My pain is for the 6 million.”
William J. Lowenberg, another local survivor, called Yosef a “senile old man,” whose statements are “unacceptable and destructive.”