Attitude Towards The State of Israel and Its Citizens
Yosef holds a Halakhically ambivalent view towards Zionism as the Atchalta D'geula (beginning of the redemption). Religious Zionists, in contrast, view Israel as the first flowering of the redemption. In a well-known Halakhic ruling regarding the saying of Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut, Yosef writes that although the Jewish people experienced a miracle with the establishment of the State of Israel, the miracle did not include all of the Jewish people and, therefore, Hallel should not be said with a blessing. Nevertheless, he writes that "If the congregation wishes to say Hallel without a blessing after the prayer service, they should not be prevented." Thus, Yosef's position can be seen as a middle ground between the Religious Zionists, among whom saying Hallel is compulsory, and the Ashkenazi Haredim, who do not say Hallel at all.
In a newspaper interview in which Shas was accused of being anti-Zionist, Yosef responded:
What is anti-Zionist? It is a lie, it is a term which they have concocted themselves. I served for ten years as a Chief Rabbi – a key public position in the State of Israel. In what way are we not Zionists? We pray for Zion, for Jerusalem and its inhabitants, for Israel and the Rabbis and their students. What is Zionist? By our understanding, a Zionist is a person who loves Zion and practices the commandment of settling the land. Whenever I am overseas I encourage Aliyah. In what way are they more Zionist than us?
In 2010, Yosef and Shas' Moetzet Chachamei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) approved Shas' membership in the World Zionist Organisation, making Shas the first officially Zionist Haredi party in Israel.
Read more about this topic: Ovadia Yosef
Famous quotes containing the words attitude, state, israel and/or citizens:
“General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in detail towards each successive thesis that offers, and you can no more kill it off by logic than you can kill off obstinacy or practical joking.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Wisdom has lost repute because it so often applies to a state of affairs that no longer exists.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Who is the LORD, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 5:2.
Pharaoh.
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)