Understanding Haredi society: Shas and the birth of a rebellion

Shas, established in 1982 as a new municipal movement in Jerusalem (with a desire to run in future elections as an independent list), is more than a political party. 

The founders were haredi-Sephardi Jerusalemites in their 30s, led by Yaakov Cohen, Nissim Ze’ev and Shlomo Dayan (the latter two became MKs) who felt dispirited about the Mizrahi wing within Agudat Yisrael, where they felt insulted and disregarded by leaders of the Ashkenazi party. 

The three met regularly in the Bukharan neighborhood to share their frustration and complaints, and dreamed of becoming independent from Ashkenazi control. They were joined by a growing number of friends and supporters, finally deciding to become “independent” and form a party that would appeal not only to the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi population but to all Mizrahim, including those not fully religiously observant.

 The name of the party chosen was “The Sephardi Shomrei Torah Association,” with the letters for the ballot being Shin and Samekh – the same initials for the six Talmudic orders – hence “Shas.” A separate “Council of Torah Sages” was formed, presided by Rav Ovadia Yosef, until then quite unknown to the public at large, but already a highly revered figure among the Sephardi Jews of Jerusalem and across the country, and hence preparations for the “real thing” – the general elections of 1984 – were launched. 

Oriental Jews, whether they are called Sephardi or Mizrahi, are generally more attached to Jewish tradition than to a strict haredi way of life. In other words, they are not known for their strict approach to halachic matters like the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox are. The whole approach is much softer and more inclusive, and the possibility of a large family in which there are varying degrees of observance – including a secular child – is not foreign to this community.

But that was not the only reason for the decision to split from the Ashkenazi party, which was seen as foreign to the community’s character. While in Ashkenazi families the parents of a son or daughter who left the haredi fold would not hesitate to sit shiva for them, the phenomenon among the Mizrahi communities never existed. Ultra-Orthodox, dati and traditional – and even completely secular – children always gathered, naturally, for Shabbat meals with their parents.

But there was more. Shas members said that in the Ashkenazi yeshivot the youth were forgetting their community traditions: learning Yiddish, praying in an Ashkenazi style and generally giving up their heritage and acting as Ashkenazim. And despite all that, in the Lithuanian yeshivot, these young Sephardi students felt they were still inferior to their peers. 

This hard feeling was especially noticeable when the time came for matchmaking. A Sephardi yeshiva student, no matter how successful in his studies, would never receive an offer to marry an Ashkenazi woman. Moreover, a Sephardi male who was a ba’al teshuva (from a secular background who becomes religiously observant) or came from a family of ba’alei teshuva, no matter how strict his family had become in its religious observance, would only receive an offer to marry a ba’alat teshuva. 

In Jerusalem, young yeshiva student Arye Deri quickly became the hottest name among the Shas crowd, who, election after election, promoted the party from the back benches to becoming a serious political force – from four seats in the 1984 Knesset elections to 10 in 1996 and 17 seats three years later. 

Sephardim, across the spectrum of religious practice, saw in Shas more than just a political party. It wasn’t only a political organization that represented them in the legislature; it represented their customs, their traditions from home. It was their preferred address to promote their cultural and social uprightness. Shas voters belong to various ethnicities, but they all have a common denominator: a desire to preserve their tradition, and a great admiration for Rav Ovadia Yosef, who became an iconic figure; after he died on October 7, 2013, close to a million followers participated in his funeral. 

One of the party’s goals was to ensure fair budgeting for the Sephardi religious educational institutions, which came amid allegations of continued discrimination by the Ashkenazi parties. In light of its success in the 1984 elections, Shas began to establish ancillary institutions for the party, including the El Hamaayan social, religious and youth movement and the Maayan Torah education network of schools.

Shas worked to transfer budgets to religious institutions throughout the country and to fund its education network, as well as to increase government allowances for the weaker sectors, especially the child allowances. Other parties considered the moves “political blackmail” of the public coffers, which led to a strong opposition in Knesset to including Shas in any coalition. 

Opposing the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties in general, and Shas in particular, Tommy Lapid’s Shinui Party stood out, conditioning its entry into government on Shas not being a coalition partner. However, that has not been the case of Shas at Jerusalem City Council, where they managed to always be a part of any coalition. 

Yet both at the municipal level and the Knesset, the movement was tainted by a proliferation of corruption cases as some of its leaders were sent to prison, including chairman and interior minister Deri.  

In Mahaneh Yehuda, Nahlaot and Shmuel Hanavi, the stronghold neighborhoods of the movement, Shas members today are an established part of the city’s human landscape, yet party has passed its glory days. Today, at city council, representatives of the haredi parties – Degel Hatorah, United Torah Judaism and Shas – are all members of the coalition, but unlike in the early 2000s, Shas representatives are much less influential. 

Furthermore, Shas’s flagship struggle, the cancellation of the “quota” of Sephardi girls in Ashkenazi seminars, is still here. As every year, Sephardi girls are not accepted in those prestigious institutions and are forced to stay at home or, having no other alternative, go to Sephardi education institutions that often offer a less rigorous educational program. 

This is the third in a series on the different groups that compose Jerusalem’s haredi sector.