NPR's Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem on the uproar caused by an orthodox rabbi's derogatory remarks about Arabs, and about Jews who died in the Holocaust. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party , has been busily trying to backtrack on his charges over the weekend that Arabs were unfit to live with or near and that the Jews who died in the holocaust were "reincarnated sinners," or Jews whose secular ways had offended God. In one single sermon he offended both Israelis and Arabs. Yosef's part was until recently a part of the governing coalition.
Copyright 2000 NPR