Yitzhak Yosef

Yitzhak Yosef (יצחק יוסף; born January 16, 1952) is an Israeli Haredi rabbi.

The Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, he also serves as the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Hazon Ovadia in Jerusalem's Romema neighbourhood.

Yosef, the son of former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, bases his halakhic (Jewish law) rulings on his father's methodology, which he compiled into a set of books called Yalkut Yosef.

Yitzhak Yosef was born and raised in Jerusalem.

He is the sixth son of the former Israeli Chief Rabbi and Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef.

He attended school at Talmud Torah Yavneh in the Independent Education System.

At age 12, he began his studies at the mesivta (high school) of Porat Yosef in the Katamon neighbourhood.

He did not finish high school, and called secular studies "nonsense".

After that, he studied at Yeshivat HaNegev in Netivot, and from there he moved on to Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

In 1971, when he was 18 and studying at Yeshivat HaNegev, Yosef collected halakhic (Jewish law) rulings from the five volumes of then-in-print Yabia Omer, his father's responsa, and published them in a work called Yalkut Yosef.

The book was published with his father's support and supervision.

It is often considered one of his father's works, since not only is it a summary of his father's rulings, but the latter also went over it section by section and added his own comments.

Yosef won the Rabbi Toledano Prize for Torah Literature from the Tel Aviv Religious Council for his book Issur VeHeter, as well as the Rabbi Kook Prize for Torah Literature.

In 1973, upon his father's election as Chief Rabbi of Israel, they together established Yeshivat Hazon Ovadia and its kollel (advanced studies department).

In 1975, Yosef was appointed rabbi of Nes Harim and Mata, moshavim (villages) in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

As part of his responsibilities, he taught classes on halakha several times a week and took care of other religious matters.

He gave lectures and taught classes in the secular public schools and strengthened religious education there.

In 1980, he and the rest of the first graduating class were ordained as rabbis and dayanim (rabbinic judges) by Shalom Messas and the chief rabbis of Israel.

With the beginning of the second class, he was appointed head of the school.

In 1992, Yosef expanded Hazon Ovadia to include a boys high school.

This was necessary because of discord between the Sephardi Haredi and Ashkenazi Litvak yeshiva communities.

On 24 July 2013, Yosef was elected to serve as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the Rishon LeZion, a position he would hold for a decade.

The ceremony took place on 14 August 2013 at the official residence of the President of Israel.

Through the death of Yosef's father, the Shas political party lost its spiritual leader.

Having been elected Sephardi Chief Rabbi, Yosef appeared to be in a good position to inherit his father's mantle as Shas spiritual leader.

However, his public position precluded such political activity by law.

Until the election, he never held any formal public office.

On 21 August 2013 Yosef released a psak halakha (ruling) stating it is an obligation and mitzvah (good deed) for parents to have their children vaccinated for polio virus.

In 2021, he endorsed the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States and serves as its halakhic guide.

In March 2016, Yosef called for religious Jews to keep their children away from secular or traditional members of their family because they could be a negative influence.

Later that month, when Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot told military staff that rules of engagement must respect the law, and soldiers should not kill an attacker who has already been subdued, Yosef said soldiers must kill anyone who comes to attack them regardless of legal or military repercussions.

Later he said: "If they no longer have a knife, they must be put in prison for life until the [Jewish] Messiah comes and says who are Amalekites, and then we can kill them."

He also said that according to Jewish law, gentiles "should not live in the Land of Israel" – unless they practice the Seven Laws of Noah, a set of universal moral laws.

Should they refuse to do so, they should be sent to Saudi Arabia.

He added that non-Jews are allowed in Israel to serve the Jewish population.

Leaders of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned Yosef's statements and called for their retraction.

Jonathan Greenblatt and Carole Nuriel of ADL Israel called the remarks ignorant and intolerant.

He was eventually pressured into retracting his comments.

Controversy surrounds the authority of the Chief Rabbis in Israel, particularly on matters such as conversions, marriages, and rabbinic ordination.

In 2016, it was discovered that the Chief Rabbis maintained a confidential list of approved and rejected beth dins (religious courts), causing further controversy as some Orthodox rabbis, including Avi Weiss and Yehoshua Fass, were included on the blacklist.