Millions of shekels in public funding awarded to a nonprofit founded by Shas Knesset candidate Dror Amos to assist bereaved families were instead used primarily to fund stipends for married yeshiva students, according to a Channel 12 investigation on Saturday.
The report added that relatives and associates of Shas officials benefited from jobs and contracts linked to the organization, called “Kindness, Life and Truth.”
Amos, a reserve IDF major who heads the Haifa Religious Council, was recently given the No. 6 spot on the ultra-Orthodox party’s Knesset slate ahead of the upcoming election.
The nonprofit received NIS 4.8 million ($1.45 million) in 2024, ostensibly to assist bereaved families in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, the report said. Yet numerous bereaved families and affected communities told Channel 12 they had never heard of the organization. The outlet reported that instead, more than NIS 2.5 million ($760,000) was spent on stipends for yeshiva students.
The investigation also found indications that the nonprofit was receiving funding for the same services from the Religious Services Ministry and from multiple public bodies — mainly Shas-linked local authorities and religious councils. It also alleged that the nonprofit and private family companies shared an address and at least one employee.
Amos reportedly left the nonprofit over conflict-of-interest concerns after becoming head of the Haifa Religious Council in May 2025, and was replaced by his brother.
Shas denounced the report as a “false investigation” intended to harm the party, while the Religious Services Ministry said Amos’s conflict-of-interest concern “was duly approved in accordance with the law” and that “nothing was concealed.”
ITIM earlier this week petitioned the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Amos from the election, arguing that he illegally remained in his public post as head of the Haifa Religious Council after joining Shas’s slate rather than resigning by the required deadline. Under Israeli law, public officials who run for office are required to resign their public posts at least 100 days before election day.
Amos was a notable addition to the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, allowing Shas to prominently feature an IDF reservist on its slate despite staunchly opposing efforts by the outgoing government to draft Haredi men. The party has since tried to moderate its image on the issue.
Shas has long been dogged by corruption allegations, most prominently involving party chairman Aryeh Deri, who served 22 months in prison after being convicted in 1999 of taking bribes as interior minister in the 1990s. He was convicted again of tax offenses in 2022 but returned to the Knesset later that year, and remains Shas’s leader.
The party has also faced longstanding accusations of cronyism, with critics alleging that it uses the Religious Services Ministry and local religious councils as a patronage network, directing appointments, contracts and public funding to party members, associates and supporters.
Recently, Shas MK Haim Biton was questioned by police for a second time on suspicion that, while heading the party’s school network, he diverted public education funds to finance the children’s supplement of Shas’s HaDerech newspaper. He has reportedly been investigated on suspicion of fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate documents and money laundering.
