The Ne’emanei Ha-Torah movement, 1962-1971: An early version of Shas?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers a slightly different historical path toward understanding how Shas arrived on the Israeli political scene. This view highlights the ideological climate that prevailed among the Haredi elements of the Mizrahi religious leadership during the State of Israel’s formative years. These elements constituted a small Mizrahi religious circle – the Ne’emanei Ha-Torah movement that was active in Jerusalem during 1962–1971. Ne’emanei Ha-Torah was the site that consolidated the national and ethnic – Haredi and Mizrahi – political climate that served as an ideological home for those figures who, when Shas was founded, assumed spiritual-leadership roles within it.