Ovadia Yosef

A central figure in Thursday's collapse of the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wears gold-trimmed robes, a turban-like headdress, dark glasses and a prophet-sized beard. When he speaks, this charismatic rabbi catches the ear of a large segment of Israel's North African and Near Eastern community, the largest voting bloc in the country.

A central figure in Thursday's collapse of the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wears gold-trimmed robes, a turban-like headdress, dark glasses and a prophet-sized beard. When he speaks, this charismatic rabbi catches the ear of a large segment of Israel's North African and Near Eastern community, the largest voting bloc in the country.

If the remarks attributed to Israel's Shas Party leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, denouncing Palestinians as snakes and Holocaust victims as reincarnated sinners are correctly reported (Aug. 7), the gentleman is clearly suffering from a severe mental and spiritual illness. He deserves endless pity, serious professional therapy and quick removal from his leadership post. STANLEY F. CHYET Los Angeles

The diet of Israeli leaders became a political issue today after a powerful rabbi privately accused several politicians of eating non-kosher foods such as pork and shellfish. The accusations against Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and others were secretly recorded as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef spoke to other religious leaders at a Jewish seminary on Thursday night.

Re "Rabbi's Remarks Outrage Jews and Arabs," Aug. 7: Israel's Shas Party doesn't represent all Sephardim/Mizrahim (Middle Eastern Jews). There are, in fact, numerous progressive Mizrahi organizations working for peace, and many Sephardim/Mizrahim have positive relationships with Palestinians. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and his followers do not represent all Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews, either in Israel or in the U.S. We do not all consider Arabs our natural sworn enemies; we do not all believe in reincarnation; and many of us are university-trained professionals who are outspoken about the need for political, economic and cultural cooperation among all Middle Easterners, regardless of religion.

Controversy raged in Israel on Sunday after a rabbi who heads the biggest ultra-Orthodox political party said the 6 million Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust died because they were reincarnations of sinners. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, leader of the Shas Party, also declared that Prime Minister Ehud Barak has "no sense" because he is trying to make peace with the Palestinians, who are "snakes."

President Chaim Herzog today named Labor Party leader Shimon Peres as Israel's prime minister-designate and gave him the difficult task of trying to form a new government. Israel television broadcast live coverage of Herzog giving a letter of nomination to the 66-year-old Peres, who headed Israel's government in 1984-86. Israeli law left Herzog with the authority to choose a candidate for prime minister.

Wrapping up a seven-month fraud investigation, Israeli police recommended Tuesday that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, be indicted on criminal charges. The case has become emblematic of a raft of shocking corruption inquiries involving the top echelons of Israeli government and business, including the president, the ruling party and the publisher of a leading newspaper.

Rabbi Eliezer Shach, a political kingmaker who declared a cultural war on Israel's majority secular Jews, died early Friday in a Tel Aviv hospital, doctors and family members said. He was 107. The spiritual leader of a powerful branch of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jews, Shach parlayed the votes of his followers into political power far beyond their numbers.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won a key remaining battle Monday against opponents of his Gaza withdrawal plan when lawmakers voted down a bill calling for a nationwide referendum on the issue. The referendum proposal, which failed 72 to 39, was a last-ditch legislative attempt by settlers and their right-wing political allies to head off the withdrawal of Jewish residents and troops from the Gaza Strip, scheduled for this summer.

Israel's search for a new prime minister sputtered into confusion Sunday. The religious party whose votes were the key to bringing down Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in a no-confidence motion last week recommended that Shamir's Likud Party be chosen to lead a new government. Leaders of the Shas party made the suggestion to Chaim Herzog, the country's largely ceremonial president, who is in charge of nominating a candidate to form a new ruling coalition.