“It’s all spin … I can assure you with absolute certainty that there will not be any splits in Shas … Shas is united,” visibly annoyed Knesset member Aryeh Deri said when asked in an interview with Israeli TV Channel 1 on Sept. 30 about the bitter conflict between him and Knesset member Eli Yishai in the party’s highest echelons.

Shas Party Chairman Deri arrived at the studio as the main guest in a discussion to mark the first anniversary of the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Shas Party founder and spiritual leader. He insisted on painting a rosy picture of the party. According to him, Shas survived its leader's death with considerable success and is now fulfilling the legacy he bequeathed it by serving as a social party.

This upbeat depiction misses the mark, and ignores the harsh reality within Shas. In the year since Rabbi Yosef’s death in October 2013, Shas has found itself in a dizzying downward spiral. It's a party torn asunder by squabbling and on the verge of a breakup. It's a party trapped in the political desert that is the opposition, cut off from all the ministries that it controlled for years. The polls indicate that Shas is leaking supporters to the political party that former Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon is expected to form, and even worse, to the rival Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party Yahadut HaTorah.

The late rabbi’s closest relatives received Deri’s deceptive depiction of what is really happening in Shas with derision and anger. They feel betrayed by Deri, who was restored to the Shas leadership by Yosef himself, but who has made a point ever since the rabbi's death of keeping anyone identified with the rabbi’s family away from the party’s center of power.