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Shas: a Religious Response to Cultural Distress Avi Picard

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Shas: a Religious Response to Cultural Distress Avi Picard February_shma.qxd:Layout 1 1/22/07 12:48 PM Page 11 Most of the Yiddish songs that I have col - ings, they do not sing these songs as often. lected are sung regularly only by women. Men Much can be learned about Hasidic generally sing niggunim , songs without words, or culture by examining the songs of Hasidic songs in Hebrew, rather than in Yiddish. While women, speaking to the women who sing women know the men’s songs from hearing them, and learning about their singing their husbands singing and from public gather - practices. Shas: A Religious Response to Cultural Distress Avi Picard or more than fifteen years, ultra-Ortho - cess in the 1996 elections, for instance, to the Fdox political representors in Israel’s Knes - distribution of amulets by the kabbalist Rabbi set have come from a group whose own Kadouri. They explained the large turnout in standing in ultra-Orthodox society is second - 1999 as a protest vote against the indictment ary, namely Sephardic Haredim. The ultra- of Shas leader Aryeh Deri and the 2006 vote as Orthodox worldview, of course, developed a protest against the economic policies of among Eastern European Jews struggling to then-Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. define themselves against the Haskalah, Jew - But these explanations can be easily re - ish Enlightenment, and Zionism. In Israel, futed, and the need for a different explana - likewise, ultra-Orthodox society is essentially tion for each election suggests that something Ashkenazi; those who refuse to use Hebrew as deeper is at work. a mundane language speak instead the lan - Social activists, meanwhile, ascribe Shas’s guage of Ashkenazi Jews, Yiddish. How, then, success to the social services it provides, from has it happened that the principal ultra-Or - formal and informal education to hot meals thodox representation in the Knesset belongs for the poor. But a statistical study would show to a small, marginal group of ultra-Orthodox that the number of those who benefit from Sephardim? Shas’s social services is smaller than the num - The Shas movement was founded with the ber of its voters and therefore cannot explain support of an Ashkenazi scholar, Rav Eliezer the dimensions of Shas support. Movements Shach, who led the Lithuanian branch of ultra- that have offered services far more broadly, Orthodoxy. In his battle for the spiritual lead - moreover (the Labor Party, for instance, by ership of Agudat Yisrael, Shach harnessed the means of the Histadrut), have not always suc - sense of discrimination that the Sephardim ceeded in persuading those who received felt. Since its founding, not only has Shas freed their services to vote for the movements that Dr. Avi Picard, a visit - itself (to a large degree) from the patronage provided them. ing professor for Israel Studies at the University of Agudat Yisrael, but it has in fact become Another explanation for Shas’s support of Maryland, researches among non-ultra-Orthodox voters looks at how twice as powerful, with twice as many seats in the Israeli society with a the 2006 election. The reason for this success the movement tried to rectify what had been specialty in ethnic rela - lies in the fact that a majority of people who for years the Israeli classification of the cul - tions. He lives in the de - voted for this ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party tures and traditions of Jewish immigrants from velopment town of were not themselves ultra-Orthodox — at least Islamic countries as second-class. In order to Yerucham and is one of not according to the standard Israeli definition integrate into Israeli society, Jews from Muslim the founders of Midreshet of the term. These were voters who work for a countries were required to shed their culture BeYachad-Yerucham, an living, serve in the army, identify with the state and undergo “modernization.” Those who educational center ad - of Israel, and live in mixed neighborhoods. In - clung to the traditional cultural patterns com - dressing Israeli social deed, a not insignificant number of Shas voters prised the lower rungs of Israeli society, what problems and solutions. are not observant, defining themselves as tradi - would come to be called “the second Israel.” Translated by Benjamin Balint. tional, or even secular. Many of those whose parents had emi - So how can we explain their vote? In try - grated from Muslim countries in the 1950s February 2007 ing to solve this puzzle, political analysts have thus inherited a condescension toward their Adar 5767 tended to focus on circumstantial explana - parents’ culture. While the social parties — To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA tions. They attributed Shas’s remarkable suc - and other parties that pretended to speak in www.shma.com 11 February_shma.qxd:Layout 1 1/22/07 12:49 PM Page 12 the name of discrimination against Sephardim an answer to their distress. They saw the very — mainly addressed economic gaps, Shas existence of Shas in public life as a way to re - sought directly to touch a more sensitive nerve. claim the self-esteem that “modernization” It insisted that poverty and educational failure had undermined. Only Shas, this very “un- were but the symptoms of a much deeper mal - modern” movement, could confront the de - ady: the trampling of Sephardic heritage and, mand to modernize, which itself concealed a as a consequence, of Sephardic pride and less explicit demand: to become Ashkenazi. identity. Shas sought “to restore the crown to In this way, Sephardic Jews, those who see its glory” (a Shas motto employed by Rabbi Shas as the party that shores up their identity, Ovadia Yosef). bestow upon it great political power and have, Many Sephardic Jews, including those therein, created a disproportionate ultra-Or - who were not religious, saw this restoration as thodox representation in Israeli politics. Mendelssohn and Modernity Abraham Socher n the beginning, the question of Enlighten - astonishment that a Jew could fill such a role Iment was intertwined with what came to be in the German Enlightenment. Another called the Jewish question. Did the ideals of of Mendelssohn’s nicknames, the “Jewish the European Enlightenment require Jewish Luther,” refers to the reforms that some peo - rights? And if they did, what did Jews have to ple hoped he would initiate to integrate his give up in return? How “Jewish” could they be, brethren into enlightened civil society, a task and of what did Jewishness consist? Could En - he declined. lightenment universalism countenance Jewish If Moses Mendelssohn can be said to have particularism, and vice versa? written anything equivalent to Luther’s “95 In Prussia, every liberalization of Jewish Theses,” it was his book Jerusalem: On Religious rights from 1780 to 1812 came with a corre - Power in Judaism. He wrote Jerusalem in 1784, sponding demand to change or give up some - near the end of his life, after the publication thing: one’s name, one’s beard, one’s of an anonymous pamphlet that challenged language. In France, Napoleon convened a him with being inconsistent and several “Sanhedrin,” which was asked such questions decades when he tried to diplomatically fi - as to whether their first loyalty was to mem - nesse the questions of how the modern state bers of the French nation or to other mem - must reform itself in order to fully integrate bers of the exiled Jewish people, wherever Jews and how Jews must reform themselves to they might be. be citizens of that state. Such cultural imperialism is impossible to The anonymous pamphlet ended, “One justify. On the other hand, civil society is im - step more and you will become one of us. ... possible in the absence of some real cultural Your most sincere admirer, S**** Vienna, 12. commonality. While I have no ready answers June 1782.” Mendelssohn and his friends won - Abraham Socher is Asso - (and distrust anyone who does), such contem - dered if the writer was Joseph von Sonnenfels, ciate Professor and Direc - porary questions do make the Jewish experi - an advisor to Emperor Joseph II, who advo - tor of Jewish Studies at ence in the 18th-century Enlightenment of cated a liberalization of Jewish rights in ex - Oberlin College. His particular interest now. No one is more iden - change for religious and cultural concessions. book, The Radical tified with this experience than the philoso - But Sonnenfels was also the son of a Jewish Enlightenment of pher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). apostate, so the suggestion seemed to be that Solomon Maimon: There are moments in which the large and Jewish enlightenment required not only cul - Judaism, Heresy and pressing questions of the day seem to coalesce tural reform but religious conversion. In Philosophy, was just in a particular human life. Mendelssohn’s short, Moses Mendelssohn found himself in published by Stanford Christian contemporaries sometimes referred the position of medieval predecessors like University Press. to him as the “Socrates of Berlin,” in honor of Moses Nachmanides, forced to debate an his most popular book, Phaedon , which up - apostate. February 2007 Adar 5767 dated one of the great Platonic dialogues. But In fact, “S*****” wasn’t Sonnenfels, but To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA he was also called the “Circumcised Socrates,” an obscure scribbler named Cranz. And yet www.shma.com a particularly pointed way of marking their the pamphlet managed to draw forth 12.
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