Ovadia Yosef (Hebrew: עובדיה יוסף, romanized: Ovadya Yosef, Arabic: عبد الله يوسف, romanized: ‘Abd Allāh Yūsuf;[2] September 24, 1920 – October 7, 2013)[3] was an Iraqi-born Talmudic scholar, a posek, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, and a founder and long-time spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party.

[9] In 1937, Rabbi Yaakov Dweck sent Yosef to give the daily Ben Ish Hai halakha shiur in his stead at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue for the Persian Jewish community in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood.

This was a defining moment for Yosef, who had found a podium to give air to his opinions, while simultaneously learning how to deal with the negative feedback he was receiving from many in his audience, especially from his fellow Iraqi Jews.

[12] Yosef also served, at the request of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, as head of the Cairo beth din (rabbinical court).

The book won much praise, and received the approval of the two Chief Rabbis of Israel at the time, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel and Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog.

The election process was characterised by tension and political controversy because of the Psak Din of the Brother and Sister and due to the tense relations between Yosef and Nissim.

In April 2005, Israeli security services arrested three people whom the Shin Bet claimed were all members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

[16] A second man, Salah Hamouri, proclaimed his innocence of the charges, but eventually accepted a plea bargain sentence of 7 years in exchange for admitting his guilt.

[29][30] Yosef frequently made use of the slogan "Restore past glory" (להחזיר עטרה ליושנה) as a metaphor embodying both his social and halakhic agenda.

According to Yosef's approach, Karo is crowned as the Mara D'Atra of the Land of Israel, and thus all Jews living within his realm of authority should be bound by his rulings.

[32]Tzvi Zohar argues that Yosef adopts a melting pot approach, in that he seeks to unify the traditions of all Jews in Israel, Sephardic and Ashkenazi alike.

In one of his rulings, he quoted Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai as saying: The Sephardim are characterized by the quality of kindness, and therefore are lenient in the Halakha, and the Ashkenazim are characterized by the quality of power,[35] and therefore they rule strictly.Yosef considered this principle an ideal, so that if one is asked (a question) on a ritual-halakhic matter and succeeds in proving that a lenient position is a correct one from a halakhic standpoint, he sees this as a positive achievement.In Yosef's opinion, the severity of Ashkenazi poskim results from their method of teaching, and a lack of familiarity with the Mishnah, Talmud and poskim.

In a 1970 article Yosef wrote about Rabbi Jacob Saul Elyashar, he says: But since they (the Ashkenazim) are cautious in their teaching, they do not (bravely) rule halakha l'ma'aseh ('practical halakha'), especially on matters of new developments or new technologies which create halakhic problems, it is far from them to be interested and express their view of Daat Torah...Our Rabbi the Gaon Jacob Saul Elyashar was among those few virtuous ones who took upon themselves this burden to resolve the actual problems of his time, and among them are some which are relevant to this day, and he did not avoid answering his questioner...Yosef regarded ruling with severity as especially harmful in the current generation ("the generation of freedom and liberty"), since strict ruling might lead individuals not to comply with the Halakha.

This is evident in a number of his rulings: providing kashrut certification to a restaurant that serves milk and meat; the slaughter of a chicken where there is a concern of it being trefa; and the wearing of pants by women.

Examples of this include the recital of the priestly benediction by Kohanim who do not have a religious lifestyle, and a shaliach tzibur or person performing a Torah reading who shaves with a razor.

He wrote: As is written in the book Iggrot HaTanya in the name of the Gaon of Vilna who does not believe that the Kabbalah of the Ari in its entirety is wholly from the mouth of Elijah z"l, (but rather) only a small portion is from the mouth of Elijah z"l, and the rest is from his great knowledge, and it is not required to believe it...and thus wrote Rabbi Chaim Volozhin in the foreword to his book...and if so, why all this awe that we should put aside the words of all the Poskim and all of the laws (simply) because of the opinion of the Ari z"l?

For example, he expressed opposition to two minhagim observed in the Synagogues of North African Jewry: standing during the reading of the Ten Commandments, and the involvement of the congregation in certain parts of the prayer service.

The bold move, engineered but opposed by Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, backfired when the highly respected Ashkenazi rosh yeshiva (dean) of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Rabbi Elazar Shach (who subsequently founded the Degel HaTorah party) fiercely commanded Yosef to return Shas to the coalition with the Likud.

During this time, Yosef was severely criticised by other major members of the Haredi religious community in Israel, particular the Ashkenazic Jews who generally sided with the Likud and the right in opposition to the perceived secularist tendencies of Labour and the left.

The failure of the scheme, known as the stinking trick,[43] was responsible for Peres' downfall as leader of Labour, and his 1991 defeat in internal elections to former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Despite this, he is a "field rabbi" and goes down to the common people with countless sermons.Despite his controversial public comments, Yosef had long been a rabbinical authority advocating peace negotiations in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and had done so since the late 1980s.

Using an argument first articulated by the late American rabbinical leader Joseph Soloveitchik, Yosef claimed that the Arab–Israeli conflict endangers human lives, thereby meeting the above criteria and overruling the priority of commandments pertaining to settling the land of Israel.

Furthermore, as Oslo stalled, and relations between Israelis and Palestinians began to deteriorate, and particularly following the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Yosef and the party pulled "rightward", supporting the Likud.

Yosef again cited the principle of Pikuach Nefesh, saying that empowering the Palestinians without a commitment to end terror would result in threatening Jewish lives, particularly in areas near Gaza in range of Qassam rocket attacks.

Some media analysts had suggested that then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may have been able to convince the rabbi to sign on to further unilateral actions by the government if concerted efforts toward negotiation failed.

[51] Yosef protested strongly against demands by the United States and other foreign countries that Israel freeze construction in East Jerusalem, saying that, "It's as if we are their slaves".

Statements deemed offensive relating to various groups and individuals were claimed by his supporters to have been taken out of context,[59][60][61][62][63] although the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League condemned what they termed his "hate speech".

[63] Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit condemned the sermon, saying: "A person of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's stature must refrain from acrid remarks such as these...

[83]In a sermon he delivered in October 2010, Yosef was strongly condemned (including, among others, by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee)[84][85][64] after stating that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews".

Another son, Rabbi David Yosef, has printed various siddurim and liturgy according to his father's rulings, and another halachic compendium entitled Halachah Berurah.