Who they are
Ya’akov Asher chairs Degel HaTorah, the Lithuanian Haredi party, taking over from Moshe Gafni in 2026, and was mayor of Bnei Brak before he moved to national politics. He was born in Ramat Gan in 1965 to Aharon and Tova Asher, studied at the Grodna yeshiva in Ashdod, and served a few months in the army.
He joined the Bnei Brak municipality in 1990 as an aide to the deputy mayor, ran the mayor’s bureau from 1992 and later headed its education division. Before Elad held its first election in 2000 he moved to the new town and led a list there, losing the contest for council head by sixty votes and sitting instead as deputy head. He went back to Bnei Brak in 2003 as Degel HaTorah’s first councillor on the joint Haredi list, served as deputy mayor in charge of engineering, and five years later was declared mayor unopposed under a rotation agreement with Agudat Yisrael. He promoted high-rise commercial building in the north of the city.
Asher first entered the Knesset in 2013, spent the following term as secretary-general of Degel HaTorah and returned mid-term in Meir Porush’s place, and has since chaired the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and then the Interior and Environment Committee. He left the coalition in July 2025 with the rest of Degel HaTorah over the wording of the conscription law.
Positions and record
Housing: Fast-tracked construction in Haredi cities.
Draft: Involved in drafting compromise exemption bills.
Judiciary: Voted for limits on judicial review.
Where they stand
Holds the party line on every issue.