Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef says Russian immigrants are largely goyim

Chief Rabbi Rav Yitzchak Yosef created some controvery when he recently spoke harshly against many immigrants from Russia.

Rav Yosef said many of them are not Jewish at all and hundreds of thousands of them were only brought to counter the Haredi vote in elections. Rav Yosef also said the State conversion courts cannot be relied upon because the head rabbi is not God-fearing as he has worked with the Supreme Court judge Justice Elyakim Rubinstein. As a result, Rav Yosef said, every conversion performed by the State beis din must be analyzed and the person's status determined.
sources: Ynet, Srugim

You can understand why this upset many.

I do not know if the claim made is accurate or not. I have no way of knowing or of determining such things. It is a serious accusation.

However, even if the Chief Rabbi is 100% correct in his claims, this was wrong. The Chief Rabbi is meant to deal with the religious and spiritual needs of the State of Israel and its citizens. The Chief Rabbi is not supposed to be getting involved in politics and acting as an arm of a political party and for its policies, even if the claims are absolutely correct (which, again, I do not know).

If the Chief Rabbi really believes what he is saying to be true, he should be getting involved and working to deal with the issue of Jewishness and making sure conversions are done properly and whatever other issues need to be dealt with in this regard. He should NOT be getting involved in the political end of matters and getting involved in how this affects Shas or UTJ...

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