Aryeh Deri

Upon completing his military service at the age of 27, and after the elections for the 12th Knesset, he was appointed interior minister in the government of Yitzhak Shamir.

Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (אַרְיֵה מַכְלוּף דֶּרְעִי; أريه مخلوف درعي), also Arie Deri, Arye Deri, or Arieh Deri (born 17 February 1959), is an Israeli politician and one of the founders of the Shas political party who served as the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Health, and Minister of the Interior and Periphery under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2022 to 2023.

Previously he served as the Minister of the Interior, Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee, Minister of the Economy, as well as a member in the Security Cabinet of Israel.

In 1968, at the age of 9, his family made Aliyah and settled in Bat Yam.

Deri attended a religious boarding school in Hadera.

In 1973, he began to study at Porat Yosef, a leading Sephardic yeshiva in Jerusalem.

In May 1976, he transferred to Hebron Yeshiva, where he received his rabbinical ordination.

After completing his yeshiva studies, Deri was appointed secretary of the Haredi settlement of Ma'ale Amos, and joined the Gush Etzion Regional Council.

In 1983, he was appointed administrative manager of Lev Banim Yeshiva.

In 1984, he founded and began to serve as a secretary to Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah of Shas.

During 1985, he served as an assistant to Interior Minister, Yitzhak Peretz, and at the end of the same year he was appointed to the role of the Secretary General of Shas.

In June 1986, he enlisted to a shortened time of 3 months in the Israel Defense Forces.

Deri was sworn in on 22 December 1988.

At 29, he was the youngest government minister in Israel's history.

As interior minister, he abolished the censorship of plays in theaters.

When the Israeli Labor Party sought to break away from the government and create a narrow coalition, Deri and Haim Ramon, a Knesset member from the Labor Party, initiated negotiations to create a Labor-Haredi alignment.

A motion of no confidence was submitted on 15 March 1990, but five Knesset members on behalf of Shas party were absent from the vote.

This agreement was later nicknamed "The dirty trick".

Two rabbis, Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Elazar Shach, strongly opposed cooperating with the political left.

As a result, the deal fell through, and the Labor Party chairman, Shimon Peres, failed to form a coalition.

At the end, Yitzhak Shamir, Likud chairman, established a government of Likud–Right–Haredis, where Deri continued to serve as Interior Minister.

After the Labor Party, led by Yitzhak Rabin, won the elections in 1992, the Shas party joined the coalition, and Deri continued to serve as Interior Minister, and, for the first time, as a Knesset member.

He remained Minister of the Interior until May 1993, when he became a Minister without Portfolio, before returning to the Interior Ministry in June.

He left the cabinet in September 1993.

He was re-elected to the Knesset in 1996.

In 1999, Deri was convicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust; he was given a three-year jail sentence.

Deri was convicted of taking $155,000 in bribes while serving as the interior minister, and was given a three-year jail sentence in 2000.

He was replaced by Eli Yishai.

Due to good behavior, Deri was released from Maasiyahu Prison in 2002, after serving 22 months.

At the end of 2012, ahead of the elections for the nineteenth Knesset, he returned to lead the Shas party.

He was placed in second position on the list, thus being re-elected to the Knesset.

In May 2013, he was re-appointed to the role of Shas chairman.

In December 2021, it was reported that Deri would resign from the Knesset as part of a plea deal for tax offenses.

After re-entering the Knesset in the 2022 elections, he briefly secured posts as both Interior Minister and Health Minister in the thirty-seventh government.

Deri was also set to serve as Deputy Prime Minister for the administration.

However, due to a January 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court of Israel that Deri was not eligible for a ministerial position due to his criminal convictions and the terms of his plea deal, he was dismissed from his official posts in the Israeli cabinet.

Aryeh Makhlouf Deri was born in Meknes, Morocco, to Esther and Eliyahu Deri.

His parents lived in one of the new wealthy districts of the city and were influenced by French culture.

His father owned a successful tailoring business; his family were traditional Jews, but not Orthodox.

At the age of 5, Deri was enrolled at Ozar Hatorah, a school that combined secular and Orthodox Jewish religious education.