Summary
Rabbi, former Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and the spiritual and political leader of Shas, whom Dowty presents as one of the haredi leaders who have decreed that peace and saving lives come before the acquisition or retention of territory (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3686-4024).
Details
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At the May 1993 ceremony to install a new Sephardi chief rabbi elected with strong Shas support — a state occasion at which the president of Israel was present and Hatikva was to be sung — some of those present tried to prevent the singing of the anthem, and Yosef ostentatiously hid his face behind a pamphlet; this refusal to acknowledge the state, Dowty writes, fed the apprehensions many had about the increasing political leverage of haredi leaders, and Dowty uses the scene to illustrate the haredi resurgence as one of the two threats to the stability of secular-religious relations (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3686-4024).
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Alongside Rabbi Schach, Yosef is named among the haredi leaders who have decreed that peace and saving lives come before territory, though Dowty adds that rank-and-file haredim, and Shas voters in particular, are notably less dovish than leaders like Schach and Yosef (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3686-4024).
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In Dowty’s Chapter 10, leading rabbinical authorities, in particular Yosef as former Sephardi chief rabbi, have ruled that an Israeli government may relinquish control over parts of the Land of Israel in order to save human life, the highest value in Jewish law — cited against the use of Jewish law to deny Palestinian rights (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 5061-5159).
Related pages
The Jewish State: A Century Later, Shas, Haredim, Agudat Yisrael