HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Yosef issued a blistering attack against Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Motzei Shabbos, following her opposition to holding the annual government-sponsored memorial marking the yahrtzeit of his father, Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef zt”l, due to its proximity to the upcoming elections.

Speaking during his weekly Motzei Shabbos shiur, HaRav Yosef expressed outrage over the decision, stressing that Maran zt”l belonged to all of Klal Yisrael and that honoring his memory cannot be dismissed as a political event.

“At Maran’s levaya there were nearly a million people — all of Am Yisrael,” HaRav Yosef said. “There were secular and religious Jews, knitted kippahs, white kippahs, Chassidim and Litvaks.”

HaRav Yosef contrasted the decision with state commemorations held for former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, questioning why those events are permitted while a gathering honoring one of the greatest Torah leaders of the generation is being restricted.

“Rabin was murdered close to elections, and they don’t prohibit [events] for him because he belongs to the left,” HaRav Yosef said. “Fine, let them hold a gathering, why not? But Maran, the Gadol Hador, was not a political person. Maran was a Torah person. Rabin was a political person, but Maran was a Torah person.”

The Rishon L’Tzion then delivered particularly fiery words against Baharav-Miara and called for her directive to be ignored.

“Don’t listen to her! Who is she anyway?” HaRav Yosef declared.

“The Holy One, Blessed is He, will destroy her, He will give her her blow,” he continued.

“She is messing with Maran? Maran, the Gadol Hador, she is messing with him? This will not pass in silence. Hashem should help that she receives her blow.”

The controversy surrounds the annual memorial events held in honor of Maran HaRav Ovadia Yosef zt”l, the legendary posek and longtime spiritual leader of Sephardic Jewry, whose petirah in 2013 plunged the Torah world into mourning.

His levaya in Yerushalayim drew 750,000 people, with Yidden from across the religious and political spectrum filling the streets to accompany the Gadol Hador on his final journey.

The Attorney General’s position reportedly stems from restrictions governing state-sponsored events during an election period, amid concerns that public funds could be used for events carrying a political character.

HaRav Yitzchak Yosef, however, fiercely rejected the suggestion that an event honoring his father could be treated as a partisan political gathering, stressing that Maran zt”l was first and foremost a towering Torah leader whose influence extended across Klal Yisrael.

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