Sephardim and Oriental Communities

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Sephardim and Oriental Communities (Hebrew: ספרדים ועדות מזרח, Sfaradim ve-Edot Mizrakh) was a political party in Israel and one of the ancestors of the modern-day Likud party.

History

The Sephardim and Oriental Communities party represented Sephardi Jews (Jews of Spanish origin) and Mizrahi Jews (of North African origin) who were already living in Israel at the time of independence.

Under the full title of The National Unity List of Sephardim and Oriental Communities, the party gained 3.5% of the vote and four seats in the elections for the first Knesset in 1949, and was represented by Moshe Ben-Ami, Eliahu Eliashar, Avraham Elimalech and Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit. They joined the government as a coalition partner of David Ben Gurion's Mapai party.

For the 1951 election, the party changed its name to The list of Sephardim and Oriental Communities, Old Timers and Immigrants. However, they lost around half their share of the vote (1.8%) and half their seats, slumping to just two representatives. Only Eliashar retained his seat, with Binyamin Sasson taking the second. This time they did not join the government.

During the second Knesset the party was amalgamated into the General Zionists, then the second largest party in the Knesset and briefly a member of the governing coalition that made up the fourth and fifth governments (though they were expelled from the sixth after abstaining from a motion of no-confidence).

Some party members were not happy about joining the General Zionists and broke away to reform the party. They contested the 1955 and 1959 elections, but failed to win a seat.

Later on, the General Zionists merged with the Progressive Party to form the Liberal Party, which was briefly the third largest party in Israel before merging again with Herut to form Gahal, which eventually became Likud.

External links

Party history at the official Knesset website (in English)

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