The Board of Deputies has accused the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel of “betraying his office” after he referred to black people as “monkeys”.
Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board, said that the organisation “deplored the reprehensible racist remarks made by Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, who used a slang term and apparently referred to a black person as a monkey. In so doing he has betrayed his office. He should be working to eliminate all forms of racism, not voicing backwards ideas.”
Rabbi Yosef was giving a sermon on Saturday night when he used the word Kushi. Although it is a word used in the Talmud, in modern Hebrew it is a pejorative term for black people.
A tractate of the Talmud talks about saying a blessing when one sees an “unusual” person, giving as examples a black person, a red person and a very white person.
