Rabbi Urges Calm After Holocaust Comments

J E R U S A L E M, Aug. 7, 2000 -- Israel’s most politically powerful rabbi tried in remarks broadcast today to calmoutrage over a sermon in which he said the Nazi Holocaust wasGod’s retribution against Jewish sinners.

“Who doesn’t bemoan the Holocaust?” Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,spiritual leader of the linchpin ultra-Orthodox Shas party,asked in a follow-up to comments he made on Saturday.

“Six million Jews, among them 1 million children ... werekilled by the wicked Nazis. All were holy and pure and completesaints,” he told followers in a second televised sermon.

In his original remarks, Yosef said the 6 million Jewskilled in the Holocaust were reincarnations of earlier souls who“sinned time and again...and were reincarnated in order so thatthings could be set right.”

The Sephardic rabbi, revered by many Jews of Middle Easternand North African descent, drew condemnation from Holocaustsurvivors, politicians and other rabbis.

He also angered Palestinians by referring to them asevil-doers and snakes, comments that took second place in theIsraeli media to his remarks on the Holocaust.

Barak Chides Rabbi

Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Yosef’s statements did notbefit a rabbi of his stature. But Israeli media reports saidBarak still wanted to woo Shas back into his splinteredcoalition while pursuing peace with the Palestinians.

With 17 seats in the 120-member Knesset, Shas is the third-largest faction after Barak’s One Israel alliance and the mainopposition Likud party.

Barak had counted on Yosef’s support because of the rabbi’sruling years ago that it was acceptable for Israel to cede landto Palestinians if it preserved Jewish lives.

Plagued by coalition defections that have destroyed hisgoverning majority, Barak has 90 days of parliamentary recess toremedy the failure of the Camp David summit, forge peace andbuild a new coalition.