Sephardi parties
In the two first Knessets there were two ethnic Sephardi parties, one representing the Yemenites and the second the old Sephardi community. It was only in 1981 that Aharon Abuhatzeira, who against the background of problems with the law over financial matters decided to break away from the NRP, formed a traditional Sephardi party called Tami, which was joined by Sephardi activists who had previously been active in other parties and social movements. Tami was represented in the 10th and 11th Knessets (1981 and 1984), but vanished after Abuhatzeira decided to join the Likud. The haredi Sephardi party Shas first ran for the 11th Knesset (1984) against the background of feelings of discrimination by the haredi Ashkenazi parties. An ultra-religious ethnic party that invests a lot of funds in educational and welfare services for its actual and potential constituents, Shas soon surpassed its Ashkenazi counterparts in Knesset representation. It won 10 seats in the 14th Knesset and is expected to do well in the elections to the 15th Knesset, despite (or perhaps because of) the trials of several of its leaders on charges of misappropriation of public funds for the party's benefit. Before the elections to the 14th Knesset, David Levy broke away from the Likud and founded his own predominantly Moroccan party, Gesher. However, Gesher ran in the elections within the framework of the Likud-Gesher-Tsomet alignment. In the elections to the 15th Knesset, Gesher will be running within the framework of Yisrael Ahat (One Israel).