THE SHAS SCHOOL SYSTEM IN ISRAEL

This article explores the causes and consequences of elementary education provision in Israel by the Sephardic ultra-orthodox Jewish party Shas. Shas's outreach to the non-ultra-orthodox public has led to two significant changes in Israeli politics and Israeli society: First, Shas, an ultra-orthodox party, has come to enjoy support from many non-ultra-orthodox Sephardic Jews, to become the primary vehicle of not only religious protest, but also ethnic Jewish protest, in Israel. Second, by enrolling children from non-ultra-orthodox families, the Shas school network impinges on a historic policy of accommodation—segmentation of the educational system by type of religious observance—that for decades has helped to regulate conflict between religious and secular Jews in Israel.

Notes

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1. See Denis J. Sullivan, Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994).

2. On Egypt see Sullivan (1994) and Denis J. Sullivan and Sanaa Abed-Kotob, Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999); On Lebanon see Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizb'ullah: Politics and Religion (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002); On Turkey see Haldun Gülalp, “Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey's Welfare Party,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 33.3 (2001), pp. 433-48; On the Palestinian Authority see Glenn Robinson, Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).

3. Ricky Tessler, Beshem Hashem (Jerusalem: Keter, 2003).

4. Israel Ministry of Education, online database of schools [accessed 6 Jan. 2003, http://edusearch.education.gov.il/mosdot].

5. Arye Dayan, Hama'ayan hamitgaber: sipura shel Shas (Jerusalem: Keter, 1999), p.184; Arye Dayan, “Ma lamadeta hayom b'Shas” Hed Hinuch, July-August (1998), p. 14.

6. See Zvi Zohar, “‘Lehahzir atara layoshna’ hazono shel Harav Ovadia,” in Yoav Peled (ed.) Shas: Etgar Ha'israeliut (Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronoth, 2001), pp. 159–209.

7. Relly Sa'ar, “The Shas Educational System—Most Expensive,” Ha'aretz, 18 Nov. 2001.

8. Personal interview with Rabbi Haim Sabag, Jerusalem, 1 July 2001.

9. Personal interview with Rabbi Yosef Politi, Jerusalem, 1 Nov. 2001.

10. Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Shas and the ‘New Mizrahim’—Back to Back in Parallel Axles: Criticism of and Alternative to European Zionism,” Israel Studies Forum 17.2 (2002), p. 109.

11. Hillel Halkin, “How the Orthodox View Zionism: Scholars Trace the European Roots of Secular Religious Rift in Israel,” Forward, 19 Feb. 1999.

12. Aviezer Ravitzky, “Exile in the Holy Land: The Dilemma of Haredi Jewry,” in Peter Y. Medding (ed.), Israel: State and Society, 1948–1988 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 22.

13. See Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Wildfire: Grassroots Revolts in Israel in the Post-Socialist Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 126.

14. See Yoav Peled, “Towards a Redefinition of Jewish Nationalism in Israel? The Enigma of Shas,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21.4 (1998), pp. 703–28.

15. Dayan (1999), p. 8; Peled (1998), p. 707.

16. See Eli Berman, “Sect, Subsidy and Sacrifice: An Economist's View of Ultra-Orthodox Jews,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115.3 (2000), pp. 905–53; and Ricky Tessler, “Mechir Hamahapecha,” in Yoav Peled (ed.), Shas: Etgar Hayisraeliut (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth, 2001).

17. Quoted in Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 93.

18. Dayan (1999), p. 8.

19. Cited by Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Shas: Catch 17—Between Ultra-Orthodoxy and Mizrahiut,” in Yoav Peled (ed.), Shas: Etgar Hayisraeliut (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2001), p. 28.

20. See, for example, Peled (1998); and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “Strategic and Nonpolicy Voting: A Coalitional Analysis of Israeli Electoral Reform,” Comparative Politics 33.1 (2000), pp. 63–80; and Shlomo Fischer, “Tnuat Shas,” Teoria v”Bikoret 12-13 (1999), pp. 329–37.

21. See Peled (1998); and Shlomo Fischer, “Two Patterns of Modernization: On the Ethnic Problem in Israel,” Teoria v”Bikoret 1 (1991), pp. 1–22; and Aaron Willis, “Shas—The Sephardic Torah Guardians: Religious “Movement” and Political Power,” in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1992 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).

22. Chetrit (2002).

23. Fischer (1991); Neri Horowitz, “Shas Vehatzionut—Nituah Histori,” Kivunim Hadashim 2 (2000), pp.30–60.

24. See Hannah Herzog, “Ethnicity as a Product of Political Negotiation: The Case of Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 7.4 (1984), pp. 517–33; and Fischer (1991).

25. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 291.

26. Hannah Herzog, “Midway between Political and Cultural Ethnicity: An Analysis of the ‘Ethnic Lists’ in the 1984 Elections,” in Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Israel's Odd Couple: The 1984 Knesset Election and the National Unity Government (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), p. 92.

27. Yair Sheleg, Hadati'im Hahadashim (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000), p. 190.

28. Yael Yishai, “Israel's Right-Wing Jewish Proletariat,” Jewish Journal of Sociology 24.2 (1982), pp. 87–98.

29. Fischer (1991), p. 11.

30. Revisionist Zionism is based on the ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin. It emphasizes demonstration of physical power as a means of advancing Zionist goals. For the past 30 years the Revisionist Zionist movement has resisted territorial compromise and promoted Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

31. See Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religion, Social Cleavages, and Political Behavior: The Religious Parties in the Election,” in Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Who's the Boss in Israel: Israel at the Polls, 1988–89 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), p. 96; Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Religion, Ethnicity and Electoral Reform: Religious Parties and the 1996 Elections,” in Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds.), Israel at the Polls 1996 (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p. 95; Willis, p. 130–31; and Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya”ar and Yochanan Peres, Between Consent and Dissent: Democracy and Peace in the Israeli Mind (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), p. 103; Yoav Peled, “The Continuing Electoral Success of Shas: A Cultural Division of Labor Analysis,” in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1999 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), p. 110; and Michal Shalev with Sigal Kis, “Social Cleavages among Non-Arab Voters: A New Analysis,” in Asher Arian and Michal Shalev (eds.), The Elections in Israel 1999 (Albany: State University of New York, 2002).

32. Herzog (1990), p. 109.

33. Zvi Zameret, “The Decision to Sanction the ‘Fourth Stream’: The Agudat Israel Educational Network,” in Yisrael Rich and Michael Rosenak (eds.), Abiding Challenges: Research Perspectives on Jewish Education (London: Freund and Bar-Ilan University, 1999), p. 128.

34. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany: State University of New York, 1989), pp. 16–17.

35. On the contemporary state of Arab education in Israel see Ismael Abu-Saad, “Separate and Unequal: The Role of the State Educational System in Maintaining the Subordination of Israel's Palestinian Arab Citizens,” Social Identities 10.1 (2004), pp. 101–27.

36. See Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).

37. “Diffuse support” is defined by David Easton as “generalized trust and confidence that members invest in the various objects of the system as ends in themselves.” See Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965), p. 273.

38. Varda Schiffer, The Haredi Education in Israel: Allocation, Regulation, and Control (Jerusalem: Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies, 1999), p. 3.

39. Shlomo Swirski, Eti Konor, and Yaron Yechezkel, Government Budgets for the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox Sector (Tel Aviv: Adva Institute, 1998).

40. Aharon F. Kleinberger, Society, Schools and Progress in Israel (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1969), p. 31.

41. Ibid, p. 32.

42. Eliezer Riger, Hahinukh Ha'ivry Be'eretz Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Dror, 1940), pp. 32–3.

43. Ibid, p. 34; and Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: Owl Books, 1998), p. 201.

44. Joel Migdal, Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), p. 136.

45. Riger, p. 40.

46. Ibid.

47. See Nir Kedar, “Ben Gurion's Mamlakhtiyut: Etymological and Theoretical Roots”, Israel Studies 7.3 (2002), pp. 117–33.

48. Michael Chen, “Bein hinukh mamlakhti lehinukh tnuati, 1953–1983,” in Shmuel Stempler (ed.), People and State: Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of Defense, 1989), p. 98.

49. See Zvi Zameret, The Melting Pot in Israel: The Commission of Inquiry Concerning the Education of Immigrant Children During the Early Years of the State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).

50. Ibid, p. 145; Horowitz (2000), p. 43.

51. See Yossi Shavit, “Segregation, Tracking, and the Educational Attainment of Minorities: Arabs and Oriental Jews in Israel,” American Sociological Review 55 (1990), pp. 115–26; Kleinberger (1969), p. 174.

52. Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 295.

53. Yosseph Shilhav and Menachem Friedman, Growth and Segregation—The Ultra Orthodox Community of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1989).

54. Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics in Israel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 85.

55. More than 98 percent of voters in overwhelmingly ultra-orthodox areas in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak voted for Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1996 and 1999 direct elections for Prime Minister. See Shahar Ilan, Haredim Ltd. (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000) p. 28. In the 1999 elections for the Knesset (which were contested by more than two dozen parties) 17 statistical areas in Jerusalem and 10 statistical areas in Bnei Brak recorded more than 80 percent of the vote for the two ultra-orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, Census Data and Election Results: 1995 Census, 1996 and 1999 Election Results for Localities and Statistical Areas (CD-ROM) (Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics, 2001). In the municipal elections in Jerusalem in 1998, the Likud candidate for mayor, Ehud Olmert, carried 98 or more percent of the vote in 22 polling stations, all in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods. Avraham Diskin, Habhirot Hamunitzipaliot Beyerushalayim 1998 (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1999).

56. Diskin (1999).

57. The Geographical-Statistical Division of Urban Localities in Israel, 1995 Census of Population and Housing Publications, No. 6–Vol. A (Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics, 1998).

58. Shlomo Hasson, Urban Social Movements in Jerusalem: The Protest of the Second Generation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 19.

59. See Yosseph Shilhav, “The Geography of School Attendance: Educational Streams,” in Yisrael Rich and Michael Rosenhak (eds.), Abiding Challenges: Research Perspectives on Jewish Education (London: Freund, 1999); and Amiram Gonen and Yosseph Shilhav, “Spatial Competition between School Systems: The Case of State Religious Education in Israel,” Geoforum 10 (1979), pp. 203–8.

60. The survey drafted for this purpose was intended to gauge how involvement with Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani affects clients' voting preferences, but the director-general of the network insisted that all mention of the Shas party and voting behavior be removed from the survey questionnaire. The obstacles and specific objections raised by Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani and Shas officials reveal that the party is guarded about its relationship with its clients. Shas officials seem not to want to encourage non-Haredi clients to reflect self-consciously upon the social and political transformations that their affiliation with Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani engenders—or at least not to divulge them in the context of an academic research project.

61. Peled (1998); Fischer (1991).

62. Jewish voters in kibbutzim are a notable exception, as this group tends to vote preponderantly for Labor and left wing Zionist parties. In the 1999 Knesset elections, One Israel (Labor) and Meretz captured a combined 77 percent of the vote in kibbutzim.

63. On this methodological point see Gary King, Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 140.

64. Support for Shas in statistical areas with a Jewish majority, less than five percent support for UTJ, and a percentage of Sephardim within one standard deviation of the average share of Separdim in statistical areas with Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani schools that enroll non-ultra-orthodox Jews.

65. 1995 Census of Population and Housing, Codebook (Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics, 2001); Israel Mega-Atlas (Jerusalem: Carta, 2001).

66. Ministry of Education online database of schools, http://edusearch.education.gov.il/mosdot/ [accessed 6 Jan. 2003].

67. For example, in a campaign videodisc called “Moment of Truth,” which was circulated prior to the 2003 elections.

68. Personal interview with Rabbi Gavriel Cohen, Jerusalem, 17 Oct. 2001.

69. John M. Hartwick and Nancy D. Olewiler, The Economics of Natural Resource Use, 2nd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998), p. 73.

70. Interview with Cohen (2001).

71. “Moment of Truth” (2003).

72. Israel Yearbook and Almanac (Jerusalem: IBRT Translation/Documentation, 1999).

73. “Exempt" institutions include mainly privately-owned ultra-orthodox schools. The Ministry of Education recognizes “exempt" institutions insofar as parents who send their children to these schools are deemed as complying with the Compulsory Education Law of 1949. See Schiffer (1999), p. 3. But otherwise, the schools remain almost entirely outside the supervision of the Ministry of Education. The state has gradually consented to provide some support to “exempt" institutions while still exempting them from complying with government-set curriculum standards. Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani today oversees only unofficial recognized schools and no schools in the network belong to the “exempt" category. See Ministry of Education online database of schools (2003).

74. Central Statistics about the Educational System (Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 2003) [accessed at http://www.education.gov.il/minhal_calcala/netunim. htm#A].

75. Shahar Ilan, “The Ashkenazi Answer to Shas” Education Network,” Ha'aretz English Edition, 7 Nov. 2001.

76. Ibid.; Jonathan Rosenblum, “Dogs and Haredim Keep Out,” Jerusalem Post, 9 May 2002.

77. Ilan (2001).

78. See Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

79. Amnon Rubinstein, “The Decline of Secular Education,” Ha'aretz English Edition, 17 Dec. 2001.

80. Report of the State Comptroller, Annual Report 46 (Jerusalem: Government of Israel, 1995); Yaakov Ne'eman et al., Report of the Committee to Investigate Governmental Budgeting for Students of Ma'ayan Hahinukh Hatorani (Jerusalem: Ministry of Finance, 1999).

81. On the record of abuses see Tessler (2001).

82. Editorial, Ha'aretz English Edition, 22 May 2002.

83. Evelyn Gordon, “Shas's Educational Example,” Jerusalem Post International Edition, 3 Oct. 1998, p. 13.

84. Swirski et al. (1998), p. 17.

85. Sa'ar (2001).

86. Tessler (2001), p. 211.

87. Berman (2000), p. 931.

88. Ibid, p. 908.

89. See Shmuel Shamai, “Culture Shift: The Case of Jewish Religious Education in Israel,” British Journal of Sociology of Education 21.3 (2000), pp. 401–17.

90. Swirski et al. (1998), p. 7.

91. Interview with Cohen (2001).

92. Ilan (2000).

93. Paul Burstein, “Political Patronage and Party Choice among Israeli Voters,” Journal of Politics 38.4 (1976), pp. 1030–31.

94. Interview with Cohen (2001).

95. Ayse Gunes-Ayata, “Roots and Trends of Clientelism in Turkey,” in Luis Roniger and Gunes-Ayata (eds.), Democracy, Clientelism and Civil Society (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994), p. 61.

96. Dayan (1999), p. 184.

97. Hannah Herzog, “Every Year Could be the First: Timing and Identity in the Debate over the 1950s,” Teoria v'Bikoret 17 (2000), pp. 209–16.

98. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 98.