Tagged Shas Party

A political ad for the Shas party portrays the secular Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and until recently Israel's foreign minister, as an Orthodox Jew. "Only a strong Shas will prevent assimilation," the ad says. (Ben Sales)

HAIFA (JTA) — The debate was not televised. The participants did not sit on a stage in front of an auditorium under bright lights. Nor were Israel’s major candidates present. Instead, five representatives of Israeli political parties sat at a folding table in a classroom of perhaps 100 students… Read more »

Shas lawmaker Nissim Zeev, shown during a plenum session in the Israeli Knesset on June 11, 2012, is demanding a public debate on abortion, which he has said publicly is akin to "murder." (Uri Lenz/FLASH90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s paradoxical approach to abortion — the procedure is illegal unless approved by a committee, which gives the go-ahead to 98 percent of the requests — could radically change if a Knesset member has his way. Nissim Zeev of the Sephardi Orthodox party Shas, who has… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — With the Sept. 4 date all but officially set as the day for early elections for Israel’s 19th Knesset, the question now is which political parties are poised to gain and which stand to lose. With four months remaining before the election, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin… Read more »

Soldiers from the Israeli army's haredi Orthodox unit called the Netzah Yehuda Battalion praying. (Abir Sultan/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, granted a few hundred haredi Orthodox Jews an exemption from army service, it’s likely he never dreamed that 63 years later, tens of thousands of haredi Israelis would claim the exemption — or that the issue would be among… Read more »