Shas is an ultra-Orthodox political party mainly associated with Israel’s Sephardic community. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
is the spiritual leader for the movement and Eli Yishai
is party chairman.
The original name for Shas was “The World Spanish Association of Torah Guardians.”
Shas won just four seats when in debuted in the 1984 elections, but in 1999 it won 17 seats to become the third largest Knesset faction.
Former Shas chairman Aryeh Deri is credited for orchestrating the rise, but he left politics after being convicted of corruption in 1999 and serving a jail sentence.
Support for the party is fueled in part by the Sephardic community’s resentment over the treatment it received from the state and political parties that were dominated by Ashkenazi Jews since the creation of Israel.
Many Shas voters formerly supported the Likud
party, in part due to the lack of any alternative, as most religious parties at the time represented the Ashkenazi community.
Shas supports generous welfare benefits, funding for religious schools (and its religious education system), military draft exemptions for yeshiva students, and the application of Orthodox Jewish law to determine conversion, marriage, divorce and other social issues.
Shas has been flexible in regard to the peace process, thus allowing the movement to serve in both Labor and Likud governments.
Rulings by Yosef and the Shas council of rabbis determine the party’s policy and how its Knesset members vote.
Shas has a fierce political rivalry with the secular Shinui party.
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