Yaakov Litzman

Yaakov Litzman at an OECD conference

Yaakov Litzman ( Hebrew יעקב ליצמן, * September 2, 1948 in Germany ) is an Israeli politician ( Agudat Jisra'el Party), former Minister of Health and Israel's Minister of Construction and Housing since May 2020 .

He is a descendant of the Ger - Hasidic Dynasty and heads the Agudat Jisra'el party within the faction of United Torah Judaism in the Knesset .

Life

Litzman was born in 1948 in a DP camp in Germany as the son of Polish Holocaust survivors . When he was two years old, the family immigrated to the United States ; there Litzman grew up in Borough Park in the New York borough of Brooklyn . At the age of 17 he went to Israel to study there. His first job was as director of the Beis Yaakov Hasidic Girls' School in Jerusalem .

Litzman is married with five children and lives in Jerusalem.

politics

He later became politically active under the direction of the Gerer Rebben , Rabbi Simcha Bunim Alter. After a while he became known as the Rebbe's right hand man, a role he continues to play even under the current Rebbe Yaakov Aryeh Age.

In 1999, the current Rebbe asked Litzman to stand on the Aguda's list of candidates for parliamentary elections . Since then, Litzman has served as the leader of the Agudat-Jisra'el faction in the Knesset. Litzman represents a strictly orthodox form of Judaism. The fact that he refuses to shake hands with women for this reason sometimes caused incomprehension and outrage when visiting foreign politicians.

Between May 2015 and November 2017 he was Minister of Health. Litzman resigned as minister in late November 2017 because, in his opinion, the sanctity of the Jewish holiday had been violated. The Israeli State Railways carried out maintenance work on the Sabbath . The rest of work for the Sabbath is laid down in the Jewish religious law. Prime Minister Netanyahu regretted Litzman's move and said the Sabbath was important for all Israelis - as was safe and regular transportation. Litzman remained from then on the Deputy Minister of Health.

Litzman came under fire in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic after he ignored rules of conduct and was the only minister to refuse to take a fever at a meeting in mid-March and, contrary to the instructions of his own ministry to the public, to visit a synagogue. He himself tested positive for the virus on March 31, 2020. On April 25, 2020, Litzman announced his resignation as Health Minister to Prime Minister Netanyahu; it was planned that he would head the housing ministry in the future . He then took over its leadership in the Benjamin Netanyahu V cabinet , which was formed in May 2020.

Web links

• Yakov Litzman on the Knesset website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Litzman to be appointed health minister. Accessed January 2, 2020 . 
2. ↑ No handshake because she is a woman . Der Standard, May 24, 2012
3. ↑ ^{a b} tagesschau.de: Israel: Resignation in protest against work on the Sabbath. Retrieved November 26, 2017 (German). 
4. ^ KNA, Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur GmbH, Germany, Bonn: KNA-News. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017 ; Retrieved November 26, 2017 . 
5. ↑ Maria Sterkl: "Israel's health minister went to the temple despite the ban" derstandard.at of April 3, 2020
6. ↑ Yaacov Litzman said to leave Health Ministry . In: The Times of Israel , April 25, 2020.