TAMI

(Tenuah Lemassoret Israel — Movement for Jewish Tradition)

   A political party founded in May 1981 by then religious affairs minister Aharon Abuhatzeira. The party drew support mainly from Sephardim (see ORIENTAL JEWS) and claimed to seek the elimination of anti-Moroccan sentiment in Israel, but it was created primarily because of Abuhatzeira's personal political ambition and his antipathy toward the National Religious Party (NRP) leaders, especially Yosef Burg. Abuhatzeira left the NRP after receiving what he regarded as insufficient support during his trial on various criminal charges. He accused the NRP leadership of ethnic discrimination. Tami sought to appeal to followers of the NRP and Agudat Israel by stressing the Moroccan connection, intending thereby to draw voters from Israel's large Moroccan community to fellow Moroccan Abuhatzeira. Abuhatzeira had strong support from Nissim Gaon, a Swiss Jewish millionaire of Sudanese origin who had been active in Sephardic causes. He had hoped for a sizable victory that would give him significant bargaining power after the election, but his efforts suffered a number of crucial setbacks, including repudiation by his venerable uncle, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, a leader of Moroccan Jews in Israel. In addition, it became clear that he had created a party with a narrow sectarian base and thus lost any chance for a broader appeal to others, especially Sephardim of non-African origin. The number-two candidate on Tami's original list, Aharon Uzan, was a former agriculture minister in Labor governments who noted that the party's purpose "is to right the glaring wrongs perpetrated against us North Africans and against the Sephardim in general." By the 1988 Knesset election, Tami had dissolved, and its supporters drifted to other political parties, primarily the Sephardi Torah Guardians (SHAS).