Who they are
Michael Malkieli is a Shas member of the Knesset and a yeshiva teacher who served as religious services minister until Shas left the government over the conscription law. He was born in Jerusalem in 1982 to Shmuel and Mira and studied at the Hebron Yeshiva in Givat Mordechai. He took a first degree in education and Jewish thought and a master’s in policy and public administration at the Hebrew University.
He taught for four years at the Kiryat Noar youth village and for seven at the Tiferet Zvi yeshiva, founded Netivot Noam to bring yeshiva-style study into religious high schools, and wrote the halachic works Torat HaMila, Torat HaShulchan and Torat HaParasha. His public career began in 2012 at the head of the Neve Yaakov community administration, and a year later he won a seat on the Jerusalem city council, where he held the Haredi sport portfolio. He was chief of staff to the religious services minister David Azoulay before taking a Knesset seat himself in November 2016, when Aryeh Deri stepped down.
In the Knesset he has been a deputy speaker and chair of the Shas faction. As religious services minister he signed an order suspending the kashrut reform of his predecessor Matan Kahana, and he doubled as acting interior minister for three months in 2023 after Deri was removed from that post.
Positions and record
Rabbinate: Preserve the Orthodox monopoly on marriage and kashrut.
Community: Mikvehs, synagogues, burial services.
Politics: Deri loyalist.
Where they stand
Holds the party line on every issue.