Shas in the Opposition

In Donna Rosenthal’s novel The Israelis she focuses on the lives of ordinary people and does her best to keep out the famous because you can find information on them anywhere. One of the groups that she mentions are the ultra-orthodox Jews and the questions of what their representation in the Knesset looks like. Rosenthal makes many references to the Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians) political party, but gives little information about their workings or core beliefs. Shas’ core values and beliefs are that they need to repair what it sees as the “continued economic and social discrimination against the Sephardic population of Israel” and to “return the crown to the former glory”. Sephardi Jews refer to descendants of those expelled from their homes in 1492. Both the Mizrahi and Sephardi observe Sephardi Judaism with an emphasis on distinguishing themselves against the traditions of the Ashkenazi Jews.        

Shas was formed in 1984 by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yosef currently serves as the spiritual leader of Shas) when ethnic divisions between the Sephardi and the Ashkenazi reached an all time high. Yosef felt that the ultra-orthodox party gave little representation to the Sephardi Jews and therefore broke away to create Shas. The party name defines the party leaders as those who will protect or guard the Sephardi. Since it’s creation it has formed it’s own council of Council of Torah Sages which is their policy making group of four. In 1984 Shas was just a small political group, in the first election winning only 4 seats of the 120 in the Knesset. Since then the greatest amount of Shas members to sit in the Knesset was 17.

            Politically Shas has moved from the left to right on different issues and started moderate on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict declaring that lives are more important than territories. Now Shas has moved to the right and opposes any freeze in Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank. Shas believes in a “United Jerusalem” and in 2010 joined the World Zionist Organization. Shas strongly urges helping the poor and struggling Sephardi and encourages aid to schools and housing in Sephardi neighborhoods. Being an ultra-orthodox political party Shas opposes homosexuality and expressions of it including parades. Although Shas believes that homosexuality is “a plague as toxic as bird flu” it condemns any form of violence against gays and lesbians.

Shas Today:

            Today Shas stands as the fifth largest party in the Israeli government and lies outside the Likud/ Netanyahu coalition instead being apart of the Labor party’s opposition. The thirty- third government of Israel is the first government in a decade to not have representation from an ultra-orthodox party. The response from Shas about the new coalition, and their exclusion, was very bitter and after Prime Minster Netanyahu announced they would not be included in the coalition they pronounced the new government as “un-Jewish, anti-Jewish, shameful, evil and heartless”. Members of Shas are continually upset at their exclusion in the government and in an article on Haaretz , “New Israeli banknotes let the Ashkenazi-Sephardi genie out the bottle, again”, they recently let their anger known when the current cabinet approved new banknotes that failed to represent the Sephardi and Mizrahi, Netanyahu’s response was to promise that the next new banknote will be of the spiritual leader Yosef.  The significance of this article is that the Sephardi are constantly feeling discriminated against in the eyes of Shas and this is why they broke away in 1984.

            A big issue that faces Shas today is the support that is growing for drafting young ultra-orthodox men into the army. In an article titled “Sephardichief rabbi blames 'devil' for plan to enlist ultra-Orthodox” the ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Amar criticized those who support drafting the Haredim in the army citing that “the devil has prompted people jealous of Torah study to fight against it”. Unfortunately I was unable to get information on the Shas information site because alas I don’t speak or read Hebrew, but the sources that I did find to use proved to be reliable and from major newspapers in Israel including haaretz, Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel.