Shinui

Separation of religion and state, a free-market economy, and representation of middle-class Israelis were central features of Shinui’s political identity under Tommy Lapid.[1] Its stated policies included civil marriage, public transportation and commercial activity on Shabbat, military service for Haredi Jews, and an end to payments to yeshiva students.[1] These positions accompanied support for privatization and lower taxation, rather than the social-democratic economic approach associated with some of its former partners in Meretz.[1]

The party’s earlier program was broader than its later emphasis on religion and state: it linked constitutional reform and civil rights to changes in public administration, education, economic management, and social opportunity.[5] Under Amnon Rubinstein, Shinui participated in political frameworks associated with the center-left and peace negotiations; under Lapid, it became a prominent independent vehicle for secular middle-class voters.[1][5] Its alliances therefore extended from Meretz to a Likud-led government, while its free-market orientation distinguished it from parties with which it shared positions on human rights and religious freedom.[1][5]

Shinui emerged in 1974, a few months after the Yom Kippur War, under Amnon Rubinstein.[5] Its original name was “Shinui — The political and social revival movement,” and it intended to contest Knesset elections.[3] A group of Tel Aviv University professors formed the movement to protest failures associated with the war.[4] Rubinstein was a law professor and a newspaper columnist, bringing academic and public-affairs experience to its leadership.[6]

The founders believed that deep political, economic, and social defects threatened Israel’s security, moral steadfastness, and capacity to function.[5] They concluded that public protest alone, or activity within existing parties, could not adequately correct those problems.[5] The movement brought together people on the left who distrusted the Labor establishment and wanted to reconsider Israel’s political structure from a left-liberal perspective, although they described their intended political position as centrist.[7]

Its eight founding principles included territorial compromise through negotiations with neighboring states, reform of the electoral and party systems, and protection of civil rights through a written constitution.[5] Economically, it proposed limiting government intervention while preserving national needs and the welfare state.[5] Other principles called for merit-based public administration, equal educational opportunity, reduced social disparities, and improvements in public life and public services.[5] This initial combination joined institutional liberalism to social reform rather than treating economic deregulation as an isolated objective.[5]

In 1976, Shinui joined Yigael Yadin’s Democratic Movement, and the groups formed the Democratic Movement for Change, commonly called Dash, in early 1977.[3] The new framework also included groups led by Shmuel Tamir and Meir Amit.[3] Dash won fifteen seats in the 1977 election and played a major role in Labor’s defeat.[3][6] After a close internal decision, it joined Menachem Begin’s government, a step opposed by Shinui members.[3]

Dash subsequently broke apart over continued participation in the Likud government.[6] In September 1978, a parliamentary group called Ha-Tenu’ah le-Shinui ve-Yozmah, meaning “the Movement for Change and Initiative,” emerged from the breakup.[5] By July 1980, five members remained in the group, which adopted the name Shinui — The Center Party.[5] An election guide published in January 1981 described Shinui as an opposition party and listed six seats for it at that time.[8]

Running independently in the 1981 election, Shinui won 29,837 votes, or 1.5 percent, and two Knesset seats.[9] In 1984, its representation increased to three seats on 54,747 votes, or 2.7 percent.[10] It joined the national-unity government led initially by Shimon Peres, and Rubinstein became communications minister.[5] The party left the government in 1987, with Rubinstein expressing dissatisfaction with progress toward peace and objecting to the return of a Shas member to government.[5]

Shinui won two seats in the November 1988 election and remained in opposition.[5][6] During this period it allied with Labor and continued to advocate constitutional and electoral reform, together with greater flexibility on the Palestinian issue.[6] Its independent electoral strength remained small, rising from two seats in 1981 to three in 1984 before returning to two in 1988.[6][9]

In 1992, Shinui joined the Civil Rights Movement, or Ratz, and Mapam to form the Meretz alignment.[11] Meretz won twelve seats, two of which were attributed to Shinui, and joined the Labor-led government.[5][11] The constituent parties shared positions on peace, religion and state, and human rights, but differed over social and economic policy: Shinui was economically liberal, whereas Mapam and Ratz followed a socialist line.[11] Shinui again received two seats within the Meretz framework in 1996.[5]

When Meretz became a unified party, Avraham Poraz considered its economic program too socialist and its foreign-policy program too far to the left.[7] A group led by Rubinstein joined Meretz in early 1997, while Poraz remained outside the unified organization.[5] Poraz subsequently reestablished an independent Shinui parliamentary group, joining former Tzomet member Eliezer “Mudi” Sandberg in March 1999.[5]

Before the 1999 election, party presidium head Shalom Reichman persuaded journalist and television commentator Yosef, commonly known as Tommy, Lapid to assume Shinui’s political leadership.[5] Poraz stepped aside in his favor.[1] The campaign emphasized reducing public funding directed to religious parties and requiring religious youths to serve in the military.[5] Shinui won 167,748 votes, or 5 percent, and six seats in the May election, then chose to remain in opposition.[12]

The inclusion of Shas in Ehud Barak’s coalition was central to Shinui’s decision to stay outside the government.[7] Barak had alternatives that could have included Shinui in a narrower coalition, but preferred a wider arrangement involving either Likud or Shas.[13] Shinui itself credited its electoral success to its refusal to join a government containing ultra-Orthodox parties.[3] Contemporary coalition calculations nevertheless considered the possibility that it might serve alongside religious parties.[14]

In the January 28, 2003 election, Shinui won 386,535 votes, 12.28 percent of the total, and fifteen seats—its strongest electoral result.[2] It became the third-largest Knesset faction, behind Likud and Labor-Meimad.[2] The result followed a campaign in which a January poll-of-polls had already placed it at an average of fifteen projected seats, compared with six in the outgoing Knesset.[15]

Shinui appealed to secular middle-class voters concerned about high taxes and a weakened economy, including Ashkenazic voters and some former Labor supporters.[16] Its campaigning connected these economic concerns to resentment over military-service exemptions and public support for the ultra-Orthodox sector.[16] Lapid’s refusal to join coalitions with Shas during the Barak and Sharon governments contributed to the image it presented to those voters.[16] He also opposed forming a coalition dependent on Arab parties’ votes, arguing that decisions about Israel’s future should be made by Jewish parties.[16]

After the election, Shinui sought a government bringing together Likud, Labor, and itself.[5] When Labor leader Amram Mitzna resisted participation, Shinui joined Sharon’s coalition alongside the National Religious Party and National Union.[5] The resulting government was the first since 1974 without ultra-Orthodox participation, and Shinui presented the exclusion of the ultra-Orthodox parties as its main coalition-negotiation achievement.[17]

The February 2003 agreement assigned Shinui five portfolios: justice, interior, environment, technology and science, and national infrastructures, along with a deputy interior minister and several Knesset committee positions.[18] Lapid became justice minister, Poraz interior minister, Joseph Paritzky minister of national infrastructures, and Yehudit Na’ot environment minister.[5] Control of the Interior and Justice ministries gave the party responsibility in areas where it planned significant personal-status and related reforms.[19]

Shinui’s religion-state program challenged the Orthodox establishment’s exclusive authority over matters including marriage and citizenship.[20] Its proposals included civil marriage, changes to laws concerning kosher food, Shabbat transportation and commerce, and ending broad military-service exemptions for yeshiva students.[1][13] These were party objectives directed at changing public institutions and legal arrangements, rather than a rejection of every form of Jewish tradition among its supporters.[21]

The party’s economic program supported free markets, privatization of public assets, and lower taxes.[1] In government, it supported Binyamin Netanyahu’s economic policy and presented itself as a voice for a previously underrepresented middle class.[22] Its founding commitment to limiting sectoral economic intervention thus continued in a later campaign focused on taxation, welfare allocations, and the distribution of public resources.[5][16]

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Shinui supported continuing the peace process under the Road Map, conditional on Palestinian Authority efforts to curb terrorism.[4] Its platform favored retaining large settlement blocs while evacuating other settlements to make way for a Palestinian state.[4] On Jerusalem, it supported a compromise preserving a united city under Israeli sovereignty while giving strong consideration to Muslim and Christian residents’ rights.[4]

In 2004, the party supported reciprocal steps under the Roadmap and temporarily changed its earlier opposition to talks with Palestinian Authority prime minister Abu Ala before terrorism stopped.[22] Lapid argued that Abu Ala could not dismantle Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad under existing conditions without risking civil war.[22] Shinui also indicated that it would reconsider its policy if disengagement proceeded.[22] On governmental accountability, it announced that it would leave the cabinet if Sharon refused to resign following an indictment.[22]

The party’s participation in government did not immediately deliver its full domestic program: some proposed religion-state changes were deferred to committees or further decisions, while ultra-Orthodox welfare benefits were reduced.[17] In September 2004, Shinui identified reductions in funding for ultra-Orthodox institutions and welfare as a signature achievement.[23] Yet the government transferred nearly $25 million to institutions associated with United Torah Judaism, with further funding expected, while that party remained formally outside the coalition.[23]

The dispute that ended Shinui’s cabinet participation concerned the restoration of funding for Haredi education in the proposed 2005 budget.[24] On December 4, 2004, its fifteen lawmakers opposed a budget restoring 290 million shekels for that purpose, preventing its passage; Sharon then dismissed the party’s five ministers.[24] The allocation formed part of an arrangement with United Torah Judaism intended to secure its support for the Gaza disengagement plan.[20]

The confrontation produced sharply personal rhetoric.[24] Lapid complained that the government lacked funds for basic needs but was willing to “give matza balls to rabbis,” while Sharon accused Shinui of being motivated by “a hatred of Haredim and everything Jewish.”[24] Following the departures of the National Religious Party and Shinui, Sharon formed a national-unity government with Labor in January 2005.[24]

Leaving the cabinet did not immediately end Shinui’s cooperation with the government on parliamentary votes.[25] In March 2005, Lapid promised its fifteen votes for the state budget in return for NIS 700 million for causes nominated by Shinui.[25] The budget passed by 58 votes to 36, two days before a deadline that would otherwise have brought down the government and triggered new elections.[25]

In October 2005, Lapid announced that Shinui would no longer support Sharon’s government and would act as an opposition party, including voting against the budget and ministerial appointments.[26] He said the party no longer felt bound to support the government after implementation of disengagement, and cited the halt of Shabbat roadwork and dealings with Haredi parties among its grievances.[26] Shinui’s parliamentary strength had meanwhile fallen to fourteen after Paritzky’s group separated in 2005.[27]

Shinui’s January 2006 selection of its next Knesset list exposed a leadership split.[28] Lapid retained first place by 87 votes to Itzik Gilad’s 67, with sixteen abstentions, but Poraz lost the contest for second place to Ron Lowenthal by 93 votes to 72.[28] Poraz announced his departure, and five other lawmakers withdrew their candidacies amid reports of a planned split.[28]

Lapid subsequently resigned, saying that he did not believe in the list and that Shinui in its existing form did not deserve public confidence.[29] The Knesset House Committee authorized the division of the fourteen-member faction: eleven former Shinui lawmakers were to operate as the Liberal-Secular faction, while three retained the Shinui name.[30] Poraz formed the Hetz faction with several former Shinui lawmakers.[31]

Neither Shinui nor Hetz secured parliamentary representation in the March 2006 election.[5][31] For Shinui, this ended a parliamentary trajectory that had reached fifteen seats only three years earlier.[2][5] The leadership departures and resulting split weakened the party before that election.[5]

Shinui’s fifteen-seat result in 2003 gave a secular, economically liberal party substantial influence over coalition formation and placed its leaders in charge of the Justice and Interior ministries.[2][19] Its ability to enter a government without Shas or United Torah Judaism made religion-state relations a practical coalition question as well as a campaign issue.[17] At the same time, its cabinet participation required decisions about funding, welfare, and negotiations with parties whose influence it had opposed.[17][23]

The party’s appeal was not simply equivalent to an abandonment of Jewish identity.[21] Among its core voters were people who affirmed aspects of Jewish tradition while arguing that religious institutions had appropriated it and benefited unfairly from public resources.[21] In public debate, Lapid prominently promoted the argument that individual choice should govern marriage, religious observance, commerce, travel, and entertainment on the Sabbath.[32]

Its organizational history also connected several distinct currents in Israeli politics: postwar protest, constitutional reform, center-left electoral alliances, economic liberalism, and secular middle-class mobilization.[3][5] The movement that began with a broad political and social reform program ultimately achieved its largest independent representation under a media personality whose campaign placed religion-state relations at its center.[5]

Shinui’s campaign against what it called religious coercion formed part of a larger dispute over Israel’s Jewish character and the proper relationship between religious institutions and individual freedom.[32] Its secularist argument emphasized freedom of choice, while a competing religious argument stressed the danger of assimilation and the preservation of Jewish public life.[32] Claims that the religious establishment imposed a lifestyle, or that public benefits unfairly favored the ultra-Orthodox sector, were political arguments advanced by Shinui and its supporters, not neutral descriptions of every religious institution or citizen.[21][32]

The conflict over the 2005 budget demonstrated the intensity of the dispute: Lapid attacked allocations to religious institutions, while Sharon portrayed Shinui’s opposition as hostility toward Haredim and Jewish life.[24] The party’s own stated program, however, framed its objective as separation of religion and state within a Zionist framework.[1]