Remaking Israeli Judaism: The Challenge of Shas David Lehmann, Batia Siebzehner Remaking Israeli Judaism us the first comprehensive account of Shas, the movement which began in the early 1980s and brought about an upheaval in Israeli politics. Shas proclaimed religious and ethnic revival in the name of the country's Sephardim - people of North African and Middle Eastern origin who make up almost half of Israeli Jews. Shas has become and major political force, a direct challenge to the secularism of the country's elite and a sustained protest against the social deprivations suffered by Sephardim. Its campaign for a return to a strict religious observance has produced a shocked and sometimes fierce response and has deepened the secular-religious divide. This book is more than a case study. Drawing on the author's research on Catholicism and Protestantism in Latin America, it is a contribution to the comparative study of fundamentalist and conversion-led movements worldwide. David Lehmann is Reader in Social Science at Struggle for the Spirit (1996). Batia Siebzehner is a Research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Senior Lecturer at Beit Berl College. She is the author of a book on the Latin American University in the age of Enlihgtment.