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Posted By richards on March 8, 2015

Shas Rabbi Says Prayers Better Than Israel Anthem

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Published February 23, 2015.

The spiritual leader of the Sephardic Orthodox Shas party said at a party convention that Hatikvah, Israels national anthem, is a stupid song.

Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, head of the Council of Torah Sages of the Shas Party, made the comments Sunday at a party convention, the Israeli news website Walla reported. Walla also put a recording of the statement on its website.

Cohen told the convention that in 1955, at the ceremony appointing Yitzhak Nissim as Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, those gathered stood up and began singing Hatikvah. Cohen said he did not stand for the anthem, but that his popular predecessor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef did. Cohen said he asked Yosef why he stood and that Yosef replied that he said the Aleinu, a Jewish prayer recited while standing.

A real man. Why did he say Aleinu? He didnt want this stupid song to influence him, Cohen said.

Cohen has served on the Council of Torah Sages since the founding of the Shas Party in 1984.

In response to the airing of the video clip, the Shas Party said: No one will teach the wise man Shalom Cohen, who grew up all his days in Jerusalem, what Zionism is and what his relationship is to the Land of Israel. It is his right and duty to think that the sources of the Torah in Israel are 10 times more important than a poem composed only in the last decades.

Shmira Imber, daughter of Naftali Herz Imber, the composer of Hatikvah, also responded to Cohens remarks in an interview with Walla.

Read more:

Sephardic Leader Calls 'Hatikvah' a 'Stupid Song'

Category: Sephardic
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