Sheetrit was born in
Tiberias in 1895 during the time of the
Ottoman Empire to a
Moroccan Jewish family that had immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in the 19th century. He was educated at a
heder,
Alliance school and a
yeshiva. After school he attended the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he was certified as a lawyer. He became involved in
Zionist activities as a youth, and was a founder of the Tehiya Zionist association in his home town. He also joined
Hapoel Hatzair after being influenced by
kibbutz Degania. During World War I he held the position of
Mukhtar of
Kinneret and organised local police until the
British Army entered the area. Following the war he held several positions in the police, including Commander of the
Lower Galilee area (where he helped organised the Jewish Mounted Police) and deputy commander of the police academy in
Jerusalem. Sheetrit was the prosecutor in the
Haim Arlosoroff assassination case. After being made a
District Judge in 1935, he served as head district judge in
Lod between 1945 and 1948. A prominent member of the
Sephardim and Oriental Communities party, Sheetrit joined the pre-state legislature,
Moetzet HaAm. He was also the single
Sephardi member of
Minhelet HaAm, the proto-
cabinet. After signing the Israeli declaration of independence on 14 May 1948, Sheetrit was appointed Minister of Police and
Minister of Minority Affairs (a new position) in
David Ben-Gurion's
provisional government. Although Sheetrit held doubts about the loyalty to the new state of
Israeli Arabs, as a native speaker of
Palestinian Arabic he was popular with the Arab community. However, following disagreements with the Ministry of Religions and the Military government (which controlled most Arab areas after the war had ended), the Ministry of Minority Affairs was closed in 1949. After the
first Knesset elections in 1949, in which it won four seats under his leadership, the party rejoined Ben-Gurion's government and Sheetrit remained Minister of Police. Prior to the
1951 elections, Sheetrit defected to Ben-Gurion's
Mapai, and was reappointed to his ministerial post after winning a seat for his new party in the elections. Re-elected in
55,
59,
61 and
65 (by which time Mapai had merged into the
Labour Alignment), Sheetrit retained his cabinet post under new
prime ministers Moshe Sharett and
Levi Eshkol. He stood down as Minister of Police on 2 January 1967 after more than 18 years as a minister and serving in fourteen different governments. He died 26 days later. ==References==