Aryeh Deri | |
|---|---|
אריה דרעי | |
.jpg) Deri in 2013 | |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1988–1992 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| 1993 | Minister without Portfolio |
| 1993 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| 2015 | Minister of the Economy |
| 2015–2021 | Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee |
| 2016–2021 | Minister of Interior |
| 2018 | Minister of Religious Services |
| 2022–2023 | Minister of the Interior |
| 2022–2023 | Minister of Health |
| 2022–2023 | Vice Prime Minister |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1992–1999 | Shas |
| 2013–2016 | Shas |
| 2019–2020 | Shas |
| 2021 | Shas |
| 2022– | Shas |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (1959-02-17)17 February 1959 (age 66) Meknes, Morocco |
Aryeh Makhlouf Deri (Hebrew:אריה מכלוף דרעי;Arabic:أريه مخلوف درعي), alsoArie Deri,Arye Deri, orArieh Deri (born 17 February 1959[1]), is an Israeli politician and one of the founders of theShas political party who served as theVice Prime Minister,Minister of Health, andMinister of the Interior and Periphery under Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu from December 2022 to January 2023.[2] Previously he served as theMinister of the Interior,Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee,Minister of the Economy, as well as a member in theSecurity Cabinet of Israel.
In 1999, Deri wasconvicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust; he was given a three-year jail sentence. At the end of 2012, ahead of theelections 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 fortax offenses.[3] After re-entering the Knesset in the2022 elections, he was appointed as Vice Prime Minister, Interior Minister, and Health Minister in thethirty-seventh government in December 2022. However, due to a January 2023 ruling by theSupreme 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.[4][5]
Aryeh Makhlouf Deri[6] was born inMeknes, Morocco, to Esther (née Azougi) and Eliyahu Deri. His parents lived in one of the new wealthy districts of the city and were influenced byFrench culture. His father owned a successful tailoring business; his family were modern Orthodox Jews.[2] At the age of 5, Deri was enrolled atOzar Hatorah, a school that combined secular andOrthodox Jewish religious education. In 1968, at the age of 9, his family madeAliyah and settled inBat Yam. Deri attended a religious boarding school inHadera. In 1973, he began to study atPorat Yosef, a leadingSephardicyeshiva inJerusalem. In May 1976, he transferred toHebron Yeshiva, where he received hisrabbinical ordination.
After completing his yeshiva studies, Deri was appointed secretary of theHaredi settlement ofMa'ale Amos, and joined theGush 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 toMoetzet Chachmei HaTorah ofShas.[7] 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 theIsrael Defense Forces.
Upon completing his military service at the age of 27, and after the elections for the12th Knesset, he was appointedinterior minister in thegovernment of Yitzhak Shamir. 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 thecensorship ofplays in theaters.[8]
When theIsraeli Labor Party sought to break away from the government and create a narrow coalition, Deri andHaim Ramon, a Knesset member from the Labor Party, initiated negotiations to create a Labor-Haredi alignment. Amotion 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 andElazar Shach, strongly opposed cooperating with thepolitical 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 agovernment of Likud–Right–Haredis, where Deri continued to serve as Interior Minister.
After the Labor Party, led byYitzhak Rabin, won theelections in 1992, theShas party joined the coalition, and Deri continued to serve as Interior Minister, and, for the first time, as aKnesset 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 wasre-elected to the Knesset in 1996.
Deri was convicted of taking $155,000 in bribes while serving as theinterior minister, and was given a three-year jail sentence in 2000. He was replaced byEli Yishai.[9][10] Due to good behavior, Deri was released fromMaasiyahu Prison in 2002, after serving 22 months.[11]
In June 2011, he announced that he was planning to return to politics.[12] He was re-elected to the Knesset in2013. However, on 28 December 2014,Channel 2 released video footage in whichOvadia Yosef, the founder of Shas, attacked Deri, calling him a wicked man and a thief. The same day, Deri handed a resignation letter to the rabbinical board of Shas, who refused to accept it. On the following day, Deri presented his resignation to the Knesset speakerYuli-Yoel Edelstein,[13] with his seat taken byLior Edri.
Despite his resignation from the Knesset, Deri headed the Shas list for theMarch 2015 election, and was subsequently appointedMinistry of the Economy andMinister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee in thenew government. He left his post as Minister of the Economy on 3 November 2015, reportedly over an unpopular gas monopoly deal, and was replaced by Netanyahu, who promised to speed up the deal.[citation needed] He was appointed Minister of the Interior on 11 January 2016. He resigned from the Knesset in October 2016 to allowMichael Malchieli to take his seat, whilst remaining a minister.[14] He temporarily served asMinister of Religious Services in 2018 after the death ofDavid Azulai.[15]
On 17 April 2020, a senior Likud Minister, speaking unattributably, toldAl-Monitor that Deri was mediating the political coalition talks between Netanyahu and leader of the opposition Blue and White allianceBenny Gantz.[16] It was also reported Deri "might even be open to a new alliance with Blue and White — now that its anti-clerical component,Yair Lapid, quit the party and went his own way", and would only commit to remaining with Netanyahu's coalition until the next election.[16]
On 20 November 2018, Israeli police ended a criminal investigation into Deri with a recommendation to state prosecutors that he be indicted for "committing fraud, breach of trust, obstructing court proceedings, money laundering, and tax offenses."[17] In 2019, this recommendation was adopted in full by the state prosecutor,Shai Nitzan, but in 2021 the attorney general of Israel,Avichai Mandelblit, dropped all the charges except the tax offenses.[18] Deri continued to serve as Interior Minister, and after losing the ministry with the formation of thethirty-sixth government of Israel, as an MK and chair of the Shas party.
On 23 January 2022, he resigned from the Knesset as part of a plea bargain.[19] Deri admitted to underreporting the value of property sold to his brotherShlomo Deri to avoid land tax, failure to report income from the sales and evading tax on NIS 534,000 of income, by funneling payments from Green Ocean investment fund to his brother.[20][21] Deri received a year's suspended sentence, and was also ordered to pay a NIS 180,000 fine. As part of the plea deal, no determination was made as to whether Deri's crimes carried "moral turpitude", which would have barred him from seeking election to the Knesset within 7 years of the plea agreement.[22][23]
On 2 February 2022, Deri gave a speech in which he accused his prosecution of being motivated by his Moroccan heritage, and expressed his intent to remain as leader of Shas.[24] Deri led the party through the2022 election, and returned to the Knesset after it won eleven seats.[25] Deri became Minister of Interior,Minister of Health andVice Prime Minister in the37th government of Israel on 29 December 2022.[26]
On 18 January 2023, theSupreme Court of Israel ruled that Deri was not allowed to hold a position as a cabinet minister due to his conviction for tax offenses.[4] As a result, Deri was consensually dismissed from the cabinet on 22 January; his dismissal went into effect on 24 January.[27] In his place, Deri choseMichael Malchieli as the acting Minister of Interior andYoav Ben-Tzur as the acting Minister of Health.[28]
Deri married Yaffa Cohen in 1981. They have nine children. He lives in theBayit VeGan neighborhood ofJerusalem.[29]
In addition toHebrew, Deri is fluent inMoroccan Arabic and French.[1] His older brother,Yehuda Deri, was theChief Rabbi andAv Beit Din of the city ofBe'er Sheva. He was also a member of theChief Rabbinate Council. Yehuda died in July 2024.[30] Another brother of Deri,Shlomo, is a lawyer.
For many years, Deri was known as "Aryeh Deri", and he signed with this name in theBook of Laws when he became theMinister of Interior, even that in the candidates list to theKnesset his name written as "Aryeh Makhlouf Deri". During theelections for the 20th Knesset, he placed a lot of emphasis on sectarianism, and began to be presented in his full name, "Aryeh Makhlouf Deri".
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