European Jewish leaders blasted the leader of Israel’s fervently Orthodox Shas Party for saying that the Jews murdered in the Holocaust were the reincarnated souls of sinners. Paul Spiegel, the head of the Central Council of German Jews, said that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s comment “doesn’t say much for him having a certain wisdom.” Meanwhile, Yosef backed off from his comments, saying that all the Jewish victims of the Nazis “were holy and pure and complete saints.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
