The Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef on Saturday night attacked the Reform and Conservative in his Saturday night class at the Yazdi synagogue in Jerusalem.
“There is no difference between the Reform and the Conservatives, they’re both the same. Both are Shabbat desecrations, both uproot our Torah, it’s a new religion.”
For the record, there’s a vast difference ideologically between the Conservative, who recognize Jewish halacha, and the Reform who do not. But Rabbi Yosef would have none of that, arguing that it’s much better to be a secular Jew than reform or Conservative. “A secular person can be made to repent, he can be brought closer, he knows he is secular, he knows he is wrong, there are many returnees, thank God,” the chief rabbi said, and asked, “Have you ever seen a Reform Jew who did teshuva? I haven’t, there aren’t any, they feel they are all right, they have their religion, they have a new religion.”
Rabbi Yosef said that observant Jews must object to anything related to the Reform, and shared that he asked the Rabbi of the Kotel, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, not to permit the Reform to light Chanukah candles by the Wall.
In early November, the Chief Rabbi threatened to boycott Har Beracha Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, over his meetings with Reform officials, and his teaching that observant Jews must not boycott fellow Jews from non-Orthodox denominations.
In his open letter to Rabbi Melamed, Chief Rabbi Yosef attacked the reform movement, claiming that they forged the Torah and destroyed whole sections of the Jewish nation. He suggested that they must be removed from our midst so that not one Jew concludes from meetings with them that the Reform movement is legitimate.
