“We Used to Pass through the Old City, on the Way to Porat Yosef, the Arabs would Say to Us, May Their Names Be Erased, ‘Oh Jew! We will Slaughter you Soon!’ They were Awaiting it.”
From the memories of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef z”l in the Land of Israel during the Holocaust era.
These chilling matters are presented in light of the animalistic and barbaric acts of murder recently committed by the Arabs, against holy and pure Jews, the Jews of the Gaza envelope, may G-d avenge their blood.
Presented on the occasion of the 10th yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef z”l, courtesy of the Moreshet Maran organization (with minor editorial changes).
“Israel is the close nation to G-d; when they are in trouble, He cannot ignore them, He cannot.”
“See how it was just over seventy years ago; there was a German war, Hitler’s tyranny in all the German occupied lands. The most important thing was to deport to the Jews to the crematoriums, to Auschwitz. That’s how this evil person was, an avowed Jew hater.”
“He sent his general Rommel; first he had to go through Egypt and fight with Egypt. His planes went out and bombed Egypt, to convince the Egyptians to let them enter. And it was an hour’s flight from Egypt to here, and we were in danger.”
The worshippers of the “Ahava V’Achva” synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. In the center sits Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and next to him is David Sabato.
“We used to pass through the Old City, to walk to Porat Yosef. They would say to us: “Oh Jew, we will slaughter you soon and we will take all your money!” This is what the Arabs, may their names be blotted out, used to say. They awaited it. We were in immense distress.”
Rabbi Yaakov Ades z”l, my teacher, took all the students and we went down to the Western Wall. Porat Yosef is next to the Western Wall. He went down there, and did the Selichot service; he was the prayer leader. What crying, what crying. When he cried, all the students cried. Who wouldn’t cry? And everyone knew that now was a time of trouble, the sword was against our necks, we are all in great trouble.
And then the wonderous miracle occured: “Two days after that, two days, may G-d’s name be praised, Russia arose to fight against Germany, declared war, started bombing the Germans. Then the evil Hitler saw, sent a telegram to Rommel, and told him to leave everything: ‘come, we are at war with Russia!'”
“And he left everything. He went to hell, went and never came back. And we survived. May G-d’s name be praised.”
“What a salvation, a salvation of souls, may His name be praised; He left us a refuge in the Land of Israel, in the Land of Israel, in Jerusalem.”
“What danger we were in, you don’t know. What a situation we were in. This evil, wherever he conquered, the first thing he took the Jews to Auschwitz, to burn them. And we were afraid of what would happen to us. We were a small handful, half a million were in all of Jerusalem (in the whole country), all of this that was the settlement, with what was in Safed, in Tiberias, half a million.”
To his grandson’s question, did they know what the Germans were doing abroad? Rabbi Ovadia Yosef answered:
“Oh, what can I tell you? What can I tell you? We were in great trouble. The tears fell by themselves. The rabbi prayed Selichot; full of crying. It is impossible to describe, everyone was crying, crying, begging G-d to save them from the hand of this evil one. Praised be His name, the Almighty; if it weren’t for G-d, we would not be alive. It’s miracles. G-d always hears the cry of Israel!”
Link to Moreshet Maran and the recording of Rabbi Yosef (Hebrew), here.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as a young man with his wife and two of their children, photo courtesy of COLLIVE.
