Morocco-born Shas chairman and long-serving champion of Sephardi-Haredi Jewry.
Positions and record
- Co-founded Shas in 1984 alongside the revered Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as a Sephardi-Haredi party giving political voice to Mizrahi Jews long marginalized by Israel's Ashkenazi establishment
- Appointed Interior Minister in December 1988 at age 29, the youngest cabinet minister in Israel's history, and widely credited with modernizing the ministry
- Convicted of bribery in 1999 in a case the Sephardi-Haredi community long viewed as selective prosecution; served his sentence and rebuilt his standing through Torah study and communal service
- Returned to Shas leadership in 2013 and remains one of Prime Minister Netanyahu's most trusted confidants, included in top-level security and policy deliberations even after a 2023 High Court ruling, controversial in religious circles, barred him from formal ministerial office
- Long-time coalition builder who has helped form most Israeli governments since the 1990s and continues to advocate forcefully for Torah study, yeshiva funding, and the religious character of the Jewish state
Cite this page
Aryeh Deri, The State of Israel. https://thestateofisrael.com/mk/aryeh-deri