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Shas

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aliasesSephardi Torah Guardians, Shas Party

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Summary

A Sephardi, religious party in Israel, founded for the 1984 elections as the Sephardi Torah Guardians, which Dowty presents as the one party established successfully on a communal basis: it appeals to traditional Sephardi religiosity while avoiding the stigma of separatism, focuses on domestic issues of direct concern to Eastern Jews, and treats foreign and security issues as secondary (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3214-3492).

Details

  • Shas is the exception to the rule that integration of Eastern Jews into Israeli politics was not achieved by consociational group bargaining: before its rise there was little bargaining with, or accommodation of, Middle Eastern Jews as a group. It supplanted Tami, winning four seats in 1984, six in 1988 and 1992, and ten in 1996 (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3214-3492).

  • Its formula, on Dowty’s account, enabled a rabbinical leadership of haredi leanings to build a faithful constituency among traditional religious Eastern Jews. Its leaders do not teach Zionist history or observe Zionist holidays, but the party has never labelled itself “non-Zionist”, and most of its voters serve in the army, unlike many haredim. Its platform rejects the secularism of Israel, but not the state itself (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3214-3492).

  • Shas has not taken a firm position on the future of the occupied territories: its leaders take the position that withdrawal is permissible if it saves Jewish lives, while its voters tend to be more hawkish, on anti-Arab rather than ideological grounds. Its leaders’ priorities are funding for its own institutions, including its own school system, connected to the renewal and revitalization of the Eastern Jewish community (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3214-3492).

  • In Chapter 8, Dowty gives its founding as a reaction by leaders of the Sephardi-haredi constituency to the dominant Ashkenazi character of Agudat Yisrael; its four seats in 1984 were the best showing for any explicitly Sephardi party since 1948. In 1996 many in the Sephardi community split their vote, supporting Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister but turning to religious parties, especially Shas, in the party vote (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3214-3492, lines 3581-3685).

  • In Dowty’s Chapter 8, Shas appears in the May 1993 installation of a Sephardi chief rabbi elected with strong Shas support, at which some present tried to prevent the singing of Hatikva and Ovadiah Yosef hid his face behind a pamphlet; an editorial quoted by Dowty holds that Shas “treats the state as if it were a foreign entity, and it participates in its government for strictly materialist reasons” (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3686-4024).

  • Shas established its own Council of Torah Sages, undercutting the Sephardi chief rabbi’s position as the recognized rabbinical authority in that community, and Shas ministers served in all the governments from 1984 to 1993 and again from 1996, pragmatism increasingly characterizing the haredi parties’ leadership on Dowty’s account (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 3686-4024).

The Jewish State: A Century Later, Agudat Yisrael, National Religious Party, Likud

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