Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef ignites controversy, denouncing Rabbi Tamir Granot and religious Zionist leaders who back universal IDF conscription, warning that Torah study is Israel’s true spiritual defense.
A fiery theological storm has erupted in Israel’s religious community. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and one of the country’s most influential spiritual figures, launched a scathing rebuke against Rabbi Tamir Granot, dean of the Orot Shaul Hesder Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, for his remarks supporting universal military conscription.
In a recording aired by Radio Kol Hai, Rabbi Yosef accused Granot and several Religious Zionist rabbis of disrespecting Torah scholars and undermining the spiritual foundations of the nation.
“Some yeshiva deans attacked me,” Rabbi Yosef said. “There’s one rabbi — I don’t know if he’s really a rabbi — Granot, the dean of a Hesder yeshiva. The way he spoke out against us on television… Are you not afraid of disrespecting a Torah scholar?”
Citing the Talmud, Rabbi Yosef drew a stark line between Torah devotion and secular ideology:
“The Talmud says: ‘What is a heretic? Those who say, ‘What do Torah scholars do for us?’ He says, ‘Everyone to the military.’ What do you mean, ‘Everyone to the military’? Just as there is an Air Force, there is a G-d Force — those who study Torah and defend the people of Israel through spiritual strength.”
Rabbi Yosef went even further, declaring that certain rabbis who have dismissed the value of full-time Torah study “cannot be counted in a minyan” — branding them as heretics who have betrayed the covenant of Israel.
The remarks have reignited a deep and emotional divide between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and Religious Zionist communities over the conscription law, which would draft more yeshiva students into the IDF.
Supporters of Rabbi Yosef argue that his words reflect a centuries-old principle — that the Torah itself provides divine protection for Israel, complementing the physical defense of the IDF. “Without Torah study,” said one Sephardic rabbi in Jerusalem, “there would be no Israel for the army to defend.”
Critics, however, accused Yosef of widening religious rifts and insulting rabbis who encourage both Torah study and military service.
Yet for Rabbi Yosef and his followers, the message is clear: the Torah is Israel’s shield, and those who dismiss it endanger not only faith, but the nation’s soul.
