Not Really Sephardic: Why Has Extremism Hijacked My Heritage?

I will never forget the 10^th of February, 1983. I was in my second year of yeshiva studies in Israel. The country was deeply divided over the Lebanon War that broke out several months earlier. Anti-war protests raged throughout the country, including on February 10, 1983, when the “Peace Now” organization held a large rally in Jerusalem. A right-wing counter demonstration was held opposite the Peace Now rally, and as tensions reached a boiling point, one of the counter-demonstrators violently launched a live hand grenade into the “Peace Now” crowd. Nine of the “Peace Now” protesters were injured and one person – Emil Grunzweig z”l – was killed. This day went down in Israeli infamy as the first time someone was killed at a political rally. I remember listening to the chilling reports on the radio with my friends. We were shocked and horrified, and the country was outraged.

Someone needed to step up and bring calm, comfort and unity to a very angry and divided Israeli society. One person did. His name is Rabbi Shalom Messas, and he was the distinguished, beloved and highly regarded Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. In the midst of those tumultuous days, here is what Rabbi Messas said:

“I reach to out to all segments of the sacred community of Israel, and I do so with a heavy heart, shocked and terrified from this terribly sad act of violence that ended in bloodshed, an expression of baseless hatred that agitated us and threatened to rock our very foundations. It is such acts that destroyed our Temple and caused our long exile from this land, and I pray that this will not be repeated. I appeal to every member of our society saying: let us remove all causes of strife and division in our country, tear down the walls of separation that divide people, and expel baseless hatred from our society. Let us behave with respect and tolerance towards one another, and let us especially be careful to preserve the ethic of respecting human beings and human life.”

Rabbi Messas’s unifying words were spoken in the spirit of the tolerant and moderate Sephardic tradition that he came from. Sephardic rabbis historically shunned religious and political extremism, choosing instead to seek peace and foster calm and unity through their words. 

Rabbi Messas’s unifying words were spoken in the spirit of the tolerant and moderate Sephardic tradition that he came from. Sephardic rabbis historically shunned religious and political extremism, choosing instead to seek peace and foster calm and unity through their words.

As a Sephardic Jew who was raised with the classic Sephardic principles of tolerance, respect and religious moderation, I lament the contemporary absence of these values in today’s Sephardic rabbinic leaders, especially in Israel. Gone are the peaceful words of Rabbi Messas, or those of the 20^th century Tunisian Rabbi Halfon Moshe Ha-Kohen, who wrote:

“It is important for us to recognize the value of each human being created in the image of God, and to avoid conflicts between any human beings – amongst Jews, between Jews and Christians, or between Jews and Muslims – for when it comes to humanity and our lives on this planet, we are all brothers.”

The beautiful classic Sephardic tradition has been eclipsed, indeed hijacked, by Sephardic pretenders to the throne, who hold the titles of “Sephardic Chief Rabbi” or “Sephardic Rosh Yeshiva,” but whose words are a far cry from the tradition they claim to represent.

Israeli society is in turmoil and chaos, and rather than trying to bring people together, Sephardic rabbis are unfortunately known today as the ones who sow the seeds of division through their inflammatory public rhetoric.

In his recent Saturday evening lecture, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef weighed in on the current dispute dividing Israel society, the proposed judicial reforms. He did so by launching a personal attack on retired Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak:

“They asked him on the radio if there’s a God? He said he doesn’t believe. They told him to lay Tefillin (phylacteries) and say the Shema prayer. How embarrassing, an 86-year-old man doesn’t know how to say the ‘Shema Yisrael’ verse. That’s a Jew? All of the state and religion problems are because of these people, these heathens.”

Do Rabbi Yosef’s words bear any resemblance to those of his predecessors who encouraged “respect and tolerance towards one another”? Does Rabbi Yosef really believe that his personal attack on Aharon Barak will help bring people together, which was the traditional societal role that his Sephardic predecessors assumed? Or is he now reduced to being an instrument of sectarian Israeli politics, simply trying to score political points with his base? Is this what the Sephardic Chief Rabbinate has become?

When violence claimed Emil Grunzweig’s life at a political rally, Rabbi Messas was shocked and saddened by the bloodshed of a fellow human being. But today, with tensions at an all time high at political rallies, and the potential of violence being ever present, the prominent Sephardic Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Meir Mazuz recently praised Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians in a mosque. Rather than shunning violence, he praised it, with a baseless claim that it “saved Jewish lives.” Are these the “words of wisdom and tolerance” we should expect from a Sephardic Rosh Yeshiva?

Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and the current Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, claims to know why Israel was struck with aftershocks from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. “It’s a direct result,” he recently said, “of the rise of LGBTQ rights in Israel.”

I can unfortunately fill the pages of this newspaper from cover to cover with more examples of current “Sephardic rabbinic rhetoric,” but instead I will ask a question: how did this happen? How has the tolerant, unifying spirit of Sephardic rabbis been replaced by such divisive words?

In his book “Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land,” the late Israeli author Amoz Oz remarks:

“Jewish immigrants from Middle Eastern and North African countries brought (to Israel) a generations-old heritage of moderation, relative religious tolerance and the custom of living in good neighborly relations, even with those who are different. Conversely, European ultra-Orthodox fanaticism secludes itself inside a walled ghetto and defends itself against anything different. These forms of European fanaticism are now erasing the moderation of Middle Eastern Jews.”

Indeed, the moderate religious lifestyle that Sephardic Jews practiced in their countries was supplanted in Israel by influences of Lithuanian and Hasidic brands of ultra-Orthodoxy. This happened because shortly after their arrival in Israel, thousands of poor Sephardic children were recruited into the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox yeshiva system, where they ultimately adopted the yeshiva lifestyle, black-hat mode of dress and insular worldview of those communities. They were taught that their parents and rabbis practiced a “weaker” form of Judaism in their countries, but now that they live in Israel, they should abandon that for this “stronger and more authentic” brand of Judaism.

This transformation of the Sephardic population led to the emergence of young rabbinic scholars who were ethnically Sephardic but ideologically entrenched in the ultra-Orthodox worldview. They no longer spoke the language of tolerance, moderation and unity, but instead saw themselves as part of the religious war against secularism and the modern world. Rabbis such as Shalom Messas were a small carryover from the Sephardic past, and once they passed away, they were replaced by rabbis who preferred toxic language over words of peace and unity.

In the early 1950’s, in a newly-born Israeli society plagued by poverty, ethnic strife and security threats, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Benzion Uziel – an exemplary rabbinic scholar and thinker of the classic Sephardic tradition – boldly declared:

“Let us conduct ourselves in the paths of true peace, respecting each other’s opinions and feelings, as well as respecting the differences amongst the factions in our country. Let us remove all language of hatred, animosity and provocation from our midst, fulfilling the Biblical verse You shall love truth and peace.’”

Rabbi Uziel’s words are as powerfully relevant today as they were when he spoke them. It’s sad that no Sephardic Chief Rabbi speaks this way today.

The loss of the classic Sephardic rabbinic style of leadership is a tremendous loss for the Jewish people – Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike. For the sake of the Jewish people as a whole, I continue to hope and pray for its return.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the director of the Sephardic Educational Center and the rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue.