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Sephardim and Oriental Communities

1948-1951 political party in Israel

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ2915298 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sephardim and Oriental Communities (Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּים וְעֵדוֹת מִזְרָח, Sfaradim VeEdot Mizrah) was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the Likud party.

History

The Sephardim and Oriental Communities party represented Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews who were already living in Israel at the time of independence, and was part of Minhelet HaAm and the Provisional government in 1948–49.

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. Represented by Moshe Ben-Ami, Eliyahu Eliashar, Avraham Elmalih and Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, they joined the government as a coalition partner of David Ben-Gurion's Mapai party, with Sheetrit appointed Minister of Police.

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.

On 10 September 1951 the party merged 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.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Sephardim and Oriental Communities” as 1948-1951 political party in Israel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sephardim, Oriental and Communities.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 1949, 1951—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1948. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Sephardim, Oriental and Communities providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Sephardim and Oriental Communities”, the useful work is to connect “1948-1951 political party in Israel” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2915298. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1949 and 1951.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sephardim and Oriental Communities” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.