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A Tradition Without a Past

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A Tradition Without a Past Chapter 8 A Tradition without a Past A new hope sprang up in the 1980s – the promise to realize and establish the Mizrahi communities in Israel as an integral part of Israeli society, destined to reclaim the focus of its oriental traditions and history and reclaim its shattered dignity: “Restoring the past glory.” This was the foundation for a new politi- cal party, Shas, comprised purely of Mizrahi members, or Sephardim, as they referred to themselves. The party ran its first campaign in the 1983 municipal elections with the intention of later running independently. Most members and supporters were descendants of North African families,1 spiritually awak- ened after the religious revival of the mid-‘70s and led by Rabbis Reuven Elbaz (Morocco) and Amnon Yitzhak (Yemen). They followed the Iraqi traditions and the teachings of the Rishon Lezion, the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Iraq). Shas was founded by Jerusalemite Sephardim in their 30s,2 men who had experienced firsthand cultural and social discrimina- tion from their Ashkenazi peers.3 The Mizrahim forged a new path, not to spite religion or the ultraorthodox Ashkenazi culture, but as a way of “politicizing integrative religious awareness […] with an electoral manifestation.”4 They claimed to have been disappointed and hurt by the Mizrahi wing of the Agudat Israel party (Hasidim), and later by the behavior of Lithuanian ultraorthodox leader Rabbi Schach towards Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Their response was to form a party that would attract not only the Haredi-Sephardi [ultraorthodox] community, but all Mizrahim, religious or not.5 They were united by their rejection from Ashkenazi Israeli society and their lower socioeconomic status as residents of the geographical periphery of Israel and housing projects, a condition they felt had formed because of the Mapai (Land of Israel Workers’ Party) and Labor party governments, as well as by a sense of lost communal and ethnic identity, which in turn inspired their 1 Mizrahi is a collective term referring to Sephardim, descendants of communities from the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, comprising North Africans, Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian, Yemenite, Turkish Jews and Jews from the Balkans. 2 Neri Horowitz, “Not a Singular Unit,” Panim 14 (2000): 10–14. 3 Yoav Peled (ed.), Shas, the Challenge to Israeliness (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 2001), 53–56. 4 See: Jacob Lupu, Shas de Lita: The Lithuanian Takeover of Moroccan Torah Scholars, (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2004). 5 Rahat, Shas: The Spirit and the Power, 212. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004395626_010 A Tradition without a Past 79 slogan: “Restoring past glory.” In effect, as shall be demonstrated, none of these declarations were fulfilled.6 Ashkenazi Israeli society failed to pave a proper path for the promotion of equal opportunities for children of low educational and economic levels via an education system that provides the educational tools necessary for professional and academic success. This disappointment stung and did not subside. They felt that the many years that could have been spent promoting equal opportunities were wasted. Sociologist Eva Illouz strongly criticized the Ashkenazi education authority. She claims that Mizrahim in Israel were not provided with competent teachers, nor awarded resources for infrastructure or a powerful curriculum that could equip them to face this culture, integrate into it, and criticize it. “True” culture, that is, European Ashkenazi culture, was meant for the Ashkenazim. Their inferior starting point prevented them from bridging the gaps in Israeli society, and without the proper leadership and role models in culture, society and the arts, the educational system proposed by Shas (urging students neither to work nor study, but instead to read only the holy books and, in turn, receive a government stipend as a yeshiva [Talmudical academy] student) successfully filled this educational void.7 The charismatic leadership of Aryeh Deri, a 28-year-old yeshiva graduate of the ultraorthodox Lithuanian stream, gained the political capital required to establish an empire of Sephardic yeshivas, gratuitously funded by the gov- ernment and special allocations that doubled its electoral power force in the Knesset. One of Deri’s most prominent initiatives was the founding of El Hama’ayan, an educational chain that provided an alternative to the govern- mental and the ultraorthodox Lithuanian systems.8 Over the years, the party established its prominence by differentiating itself from the Ashkenazim, and radicalized its stance regarding everything the secular-Ashkenazi-Israeli administration stood for: discrimination, alienation, and preferential treat- ment on the grounds of ethnicity.9 In the 1999 elections, more residents of development towns on the periph- ery voted for Shas than for any other party. In the eyes of its supporters, Shas was more than a party: it was a cultural home, with substance and the promise 6 Yemini Ben-Dror, “The Deceitful Charms of Shas,” Panim 14 (2000):3. The issue was elabo- rated upon in the book, the Challenge to Israeliness, particularly Sami Chetrit’s essay, Catch 17: Between Haredism and Mizrahism. 7 Eva Illouz, “Ashkenazi Jews in a Mizrahi Country, on the myth that helped many Israelis clear their conscience and rid themselves of responsibility for the exclusion of Mizrahi Jews,” Haaretz, March 16, 2012. 8 Ibid. 9 Ben-Dror, “Deceitful Charms.”.
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