Word: sephardim
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Labor party, which governed Israel for the first three decades of its independence, has borne the brunt of the resultant hostility, and despite apologizing for its past ill-treatment of the Sephardim, it continues to suffer their ire. Shas recently bolted Prime Minister Ehud Barak's coalition, and last week helped defeat his nominee for president - the ur-Ashkenazi Shimon Peres - instead electing an Iranian-born legislator from the opposition. But the contempt for European Jewry implied by Rabbi Yosef's depiction of Holocaust victims signals a new low, and the fact that it came as part of a sermon...
...Bibi's popular strength is much more organic. Netanyahu is the king of the Israeli underclass. Those who are alienated from Israel's privileged, Ashkenazi upper-class find a real leader in Netanyahu. In particular, Bibi has skillfully stitched together an ethnically heterodox and eminently loyal support base of Sephardim (Jews of Middle Eastern origin), Russian immigrants, and the ultra-religious. Although Barak may enjoy the applause of Israel's socioeconomic elite, they constitute only a demographic plurality and not a majority. On the other hand, Netanyahu's collective, multi-ethnic support may just be that majority. If they...
...election, which is scheduled for 2000 but could be called as soon as Labor can secure a majority vote in the Knesset. One way to do that could be recruiting one of his primary opponents, former ambassador to Spain Shlomo Ben-Ami, who claims to have support among the Sephardim, or Middle Eastern Jews, who have traditionally leaned toward Likud. Considering Netanyahu's hair's-width victory over Peres in 1996 and the Prime Minister's damaged reputation among Israel's moderates, a few such inroads may be all Barak needs...
...better. Levy, 52, an immigrant from Morocco and former construction worker who has never earned a college degree, has become the strongest leader of Israel's increasingly numerous and powerful Sephardic (Oriental) Jews. Many Israelis, in fact, suggest that the derision he has encountered reflects resentment of the Sephardim by long-dominant Ashkenazi Jews. He has proved a shrewd infighter in domestic posts, and though he is the first Israeli Foreign Minister who is unable to speak English, he is fluent in Arabic and French...
...inability to appeal to the Sephardic Jewish immigrants from North Africa. Labor's failure to do better was all the more glaring because Peres' opponent was not, as in 1977 and 1981, the impassioned Menachem Begin but the untried and colorless Shamir. The outcome confirmed that the Sephardim, who now constitute a majority of Israel's population, have become a potent political force. Many of them hold a grudge against Labor for supposedly neglecting their needs during the 1950s and 1960s...