Naftali Bennett

Naftali Bennett

Naftali Bennett, Hebrew: נפתלי בנט , (born March 25, 1972 in Haifa) is an Israeli politician of HaBayit HaYehudi ("The Jewish Home"). He has been active in national politics since 2012.

Bennett has been a member of Knesset since 2013. He was Minister of the Economy and Minister of Religious Services in the third Netanyahu government, from 2013 to 2015. Since 2013 he has been Minister of Diaspora Affairs and since 2015 also Minister of Education, both in the fourth Netanyahu government.

As the Education minister he wants more content about Judaism in Israeli schools. This affects the secular public school system as well as religious public schools. Furthermore he is absolutely against the establishment of an independant Palestinian state.

He performed his military service in an IDF special forces combat unit in which he saw action in several operations. (He is a reservist with the rank of major). Afterwards he studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before entering into politics he worked in software, which has made him very wealthy. He was the CEO of software companies Cyota and Soluto.

Naftali is an observer of Modern Orthodox Judaism. Until his election into the Knesset he was also a citizen of the United States due to his parents being US citizens who emigrated to Israel.

References

• Bio at Knesset Website

Current political leaders in the Knesset

Mansour Abbas (The Joint List - Ra'am)  • Naftali Bennett (Yamina - New Right)  • Yael Cohen-Paran (Green Party)  • Aryeh Deri (Shas)  • Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism - Degel HaTorah)  •   Benny Gantz (Blue and White - Israel Resilience)  •   Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz)  • Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid-Telem - Yesh Atid)  • Orly Levy (Gesher)  • Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu)  • Ya'akov Litzman (United Torah Judaism - Agudat Yisrael)  • Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud)  • Ayman Odeh (The Joint List - Hadash)  • Amir Peretz (HaAvoda)  • Rafi Peretz (HaBayit HaYehudi)  • Mtanes Shehadeh (The Joint List - Balad)  • Bezalel Smotrich (Yamina - Tkuma)  • Ahmad Tibi (The Joint List - Ta'al)  • Moshe Ya'alon (Yesh Atid-Telem - Telem)