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Right:
Shas Party's
Rabbi Ovadia
Yosef watches
Arieh Deri
read a
statement
April 21 after
Deri was the
only person
indicted in
Israel's
influence-
peddling
scandal.

Bottom:
Shimon Peres
signs a
petition calling
for an official
inquiry into the
Bar-On case.

Israel? In other words, how come the le- ty elections, added that "anyone who reads
gal system found an alleged extortionist the report can see it from a public stand-
(Mr. Deri) but no "extortee" (Binyamin Ne- point. Netanyahu is more responsible for
the affair than Aryeh Deri."
tanyahu)?
However, none of this has assuaged the
Even Labor Party Chairman Shimon
Peres said that the attorney general wrath of the ethnic genie, a phrase in it-
"should have issued indictments against selfthat some commentators see as racist.
Thus, sadly, well into the second gen-
everyone or against no one." Ehud Barak,
the front-runner to replace Mr. Peres as eration after the establishment of the state,
party chairman in the upcoming June par- at a time when eight of the government's
17 ministers are Sephardic, the charge
of persecution against the ethnic group
still has a powerful ring.
Most sociologists agree that the once
wide cultural and political gaps between
Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews in Israel
have been blurred if not actually erased.
However, they add, economically far more
Sephardim than Ashkenazim are on the
lower end of the scale. Shas, which has a
done a remarkable job in helping poor
Sephardim with its string of schools and
social service programs, clearly sees a lin-
gering social discrimination based on a
specific religious orientation.
Mr. Deri and David Yosefs harangues
are being read as attempts to harness
Shas' broad constituency of Zionist, reli-
giously moderate "traditional" Sephardim
to Shas' leaders' more religious world view.
Labor Knesset member Professor Shlo-
mo Ben-Ami is one of the Sephardim who
rejects it. "[Shas] is turning the social de-

AP PHOTO BY MATI S

the bottle," as the press has dubbed the
unexpected fallout of the Bar-On Affair,
has been so explosive that it has become
the story of the episode. Many — and not
only Sephardim — are now asking one
question: How come the only person in-
dicted in the scandal was Aryeh Deri, the
brilliant young Sephardic politician who
built the Shas Party from a marginal so-
cial movement to a focal political force in

sires [of Israel's broad Sephardic popula-
tion], which can be met through education,
into a religious-secular struggle. ... I, a na-
tive of Morocco, don't accept that Shas'
world view is [that of] Mizrachi or
Sephardic Jewry. Sephardic Jewry creat-
ed the marvelous, magical blend [between
Jewish] tradition and a great love of West-
em culture."
While these social trends and counter-
trends sort themselves out, the political
gambits continue. Mr. Peres' instinctive
reaction has been to call for new elections.
He has since had ample reason to recon-
sider the idea. While Shas was once the
coalition partner of Yitzhak Rabin and
then himself, today an alliance of self-pro-
claimed victims of the vaguely defined "left-
ist elites" has emerged between Messrs.
Deri and Netanyahu. "I personally would
be happy if Netanyahu would call an elec-
tion," Mr. Deri said this week. "Both he
and Shas would come out stronger. ... In
the last election [tens of thousands of] Shas
votes went to Peres. Today that wouldn't
happen."
Thus, the unexpected result of the Bar-
On Affair: What began as an investigation
for clean government has turned into ex-
acerbated ethnic strife, activists railing
against the rule of law, and new political
alliances. ❑