In 2010, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a prominent Israeli religious authority and spiritual leader of the Shas political party, delivered a sermon in which he made statements regarding non-Jews, referred to as gentiles or goyim.

According to recordings and contemporaneous media reports, Rabbi Yosef stated that gentiles were created to serve the people of Israel and had no role in the world beyond that function. The remarks were delivered in a religious sermon setting and were presented as theological assertions.

The statements were publicly reported and generated widespread attention. They were documented by multiple news organizations and human rights groups as part of coverage of religious rhetoric and public discourse in Israel at the time.

The remarks were attributed solely to Rabbi Yosef and were not issued as official policy or law. They do not appear in formal legal texts or state doctrine.

1) The ‘guilt’ of Jewish victims of the Holocaust:
“The six million Holocaust victims were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things which should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone.” — Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000

2) Hurricane Katrina as divine punishment for godlessness and American support for the disengagement from Gaza: “There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study… Black people reside there [New Orleans]. Blacks will study the Torah? [God said] let’s bring a tsunami and drown them.” “Hundreds of thousands remained homeless. Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God.” “Bush was behind Gush Katif [the Gaza settlement bloc]. He encouraged Sharon to expel Gush Katif… We had 15,000 people expelled here, and there 150,000. It was God’s retribution… God does not short-change anyone.” — Weekly Saturday night sermon in July 2005

4) On making peace with Arabs: “How can you make peace with a snake?” “Those evildoers, the Arabs — it says in the Gemara [Talmud] that God is sorry he ever created those sons of Ishmael.” — Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000

5) On Muslims: “They’re stupid. Their religion is as ugly as they are.” — Weekly Saturday night sermon in December 2009. (Yosef was discussing the law that a Jewish woman may remarry her husband after they divorced only if she has not slept another man in the interim. However, said Yosef, in Muslim religious law, the condition for a woman to remarry her husband is that she marry another man first.)