Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef refused to apologize for his derogatory sayings against immigrants from the former Soviet Union despite fierce criticism from lawmakers.
"I said it clearly and I'll say it again," said the rabbi. "Along the blessed immigration of Jews from the former USSR, who gave their lives for the protection of Judaism – there is a minority of immigrants who are not Jewish in the biblical sense, who migrated here on the back of the Law of Return."
"Anyone who lets these gentiles come here works out of extraneous considerations, and chiefly acts in a dishonest manner towards them," he went on to say.