More Drivel From The Great Rav Ovadiah

Rav Ovadiah Yosef, spiritual leader of world Sephardic Jewry, just attacked one of the major bastions of Israeli democracy.  He has labeled the Israeli courts “a court of gentiles.”  That, apparently, is a very bad thing when you are a loyal Torah Jew like his holiness.

FailedMessiah.com (from Haaretz which has a big ol’ paywall) relates what happened when Yosef was asked about Israeli judges who are Orthodox Jews:

“Whoever presides over a court of gentiles, and judges using the laws of gentiles, gives up the Torah of Moses, and is called wicked,” said Rabbi Yosef on Saturday night. “They judge according to the laws of the nations, not the Torah. They accept testimony from women. This is against the Torah,” continued Rabbi Yosef.

Rabbi Yosef related an incident presented to him, in which a couple married with an Israel court judge as a witness. Rabbi Yosef ordered them “to marry again, with a different ketubah. That ketubah is invalid. Why? He [the witness] is wicked, and incompetent to testify. It must be known.”

“They hate the Torah, so they are incompetent as witnesses. There is no doubt. Any judge that presides over a secular court is invalid as a witness. They must not be used to witness matrimony, to sign the ketubah. It is forbidden,” said Rabbi Yossef. He went on to call such a marriage invalid, likening it to living in sin with a  prostitute.…

He made them marry again with a different ketubah.  Because it was signed by an ORTHODOX Jew who was an Israeli court judge.  And that signature was so tainted that the marriage it sealed was basically a prostitution arrangement.