The Black Revival of Shas?

Listening to the morning news just now, they mentioned that the Israeli political party of Shas has officially launched its elections campaign under the slogan of, how original, “Yes, we can!”

Hilarious, really. Shas is the only political party in Israel that successfully runs under the ethnic card, playing on the rift between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi (aka Sepharadi). Their name is made of two letters in Hebrew and stands for “Shomrei Torah Sepharadim“. They openly support a very sectoral agenda, bringing up the “historic wrong” done to Jewish people of Middle Eastern origin in Israel.

Now, generally speaking, these people usually have a darker skin tone (and for the record, I’m a “mongrel”, so “these people” are also my people). In fact, back in the days, the derogative term (or one of them) used by the Ashkenazi Jews to describe them was “Schwartze” which literally means black in Yiddish. Funny, when you think about all those Ashkenazi families named Schwartz, a typical Jewish name in some countries because Jews were perceived as being darker than non-Jews back in Europe.

Back to Shas. They seem to feel close to Obama, obviously, shamelessly borrowing his “Yes, We Can” for their own needs. It’s funny because they have zero to do with any of the progressive, liberal or democratic ideas. Shas has the Torah in their name for a reason, being an ultra-religious party, supporting ideas which align with those of the far-right Christians of the US. Ideaologically, they are as far away from the US Democrats as can be. I guess they feel that one’s ethnic roots, not to mention skin color, is the key issue? Sad, really.