Rabbi's Funeral 'Largest' in Israel History
More than 700,000 people took to the streets of Jerusalem on Monday night to mourn influential Sephardic Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, making it the biggest funeral in Israel's history, police said.
"We estimate there are more (than) 700,000 people taking part in the largest of funerals ever in Israel," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld wrote on his official Twitter account, referring to Yosef's funeral.
Rosenfeld noted there were more than 4,000 police securing the event, which shut down many streets in the Holy City.
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services said more than 150 people had suffered slight injuries due to the overcrowded streets. Fifteen were taken to hospital.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were currently slightly over six million Jews in Israel, meaning that over one in every 10 Jews was at the funeral.
Yosef, 93, who wielded enormous influence among Israeli Jews of Middle Eastern and North African ancestry but courted controversy with his outspoken views, had been in and out of hospital for months and undergone heart surgery.
A former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel whose son took over the same role in June, Yosef had frequently played the role of kingmaker in the country's fickle coalition politics.
He was spiritual leader also of ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which was a member of most ruling coalitions before going into opposition after January elections.
Source: Agence France Presse
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