Shas

As in Eastern Europe, the Sephardic and North African Jewish communities did not experience movements for religious reform like the ones that arose in Central and Western Europe and in America. The main threat to their religious tradition came from the secular influences that they encountered under colonial rule, especially under French rule in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. At any rate, there was no need for a European-style "Orthodoxy."

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and the riots and persecutions that resulted against the Jews of Arab countries, massive numbers of Middle-Eastern Jews were brought to Israel. The Israeli leadership, consisting largely of secular Ashkenazic Jews, often viewed the religious lifestyles of their "oriental" cousins as another manifestation of the cultural primitiveness that would have to be shed as part of their integration into a modern Western society. Many of the immigrants were persuaded to abandon the religious traditions of their former homelands.

During the first decades of Israeli statehood, North African Jews did not establish their own political or religious movements or institutions, and most were absorbed into the established Ashkenazic bodies. They were usually educated in the State Religious School System (even when religious Ashkenazim were sending their children to private religious schools and yeshivahs). The main religious political movements, the Aguddat Israel and the Mizrachi (which evolved into the National Religious Party), had few Sephardim among their leadership.

By the mid-1970's the ethnic divisions between Ashkenazic and Sepharadic Israelis became a major social issue.

In the religious sphere this involved the creation of Sephardic parallels to the mainstream religious parties.

Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef

Although considerable numbers of North African Jews had been educated at yeshivahs affiliated with Aguddat Israel, adopting their typical dress and lifestyles, the movement continued to see itself as an Eastern European constituency. Yiddish remained the language of discussions for its guiding "Council of Torah Sages," and the great Sephardic Rabbinic authorities were often held in disdain. (From the early Middle Ages the two communities had evolved different approaches to religious scholarship: The Europeans valued incisive dialectic, whereas the Spanish Rabbis excelled in systematic codification).

The upshot of this was the creation of a Sephardic equivalent to Aguddat Israel, named "Shas" (Shomrei Torah Sephardim-Sephardi Torah Guardians), with its own Council of Torah Sages. In the 1999 election, Shas won an unexpected 17 Knesset seats and, for the first time, posed a threat to the two leading parties.

The principal spiritual leader of the party is the renowned halakhic authority Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. The Israeli government's refusal to extend Rabbi Yosef's term as Sephardic Chief Rabbi (Rishon Letzion) had been one of the main reasons for the Shas party's establishment.