Former Shas minister Moshe Arbel resigns from Knesset; defied party line on key issues

Shas MK and former cabinet minister Moshe Arbel announced his retirement from politics and submitted a letter of resignation to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Sunday, only days before lawmakers are expected to vote to dissolve parliament, triggering early elections.

Arbel, despite representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency that is often criticized for eschewing secular education and military service, is a college-educated attorney who served in the IDF in a casualty identification unit before becoming a military prosecutor in the reserves.

He first announced his resignation in a letter to Aryeh Deri, in which he thanked the Shas chairman for accepting his request to end his parliamentary tenure at the end of the current session.

Thanking Deri for his “full backing and steadfast support for decisions made during these significant years,” Arbel said he will “continue to act in the light of the values of the magnificent Shas movement” and “carry on as a public servant even outside the Knesset” by striving “for the unity of the people and the sanctification of Heaven’s name.”

Deri, in return, praised the lawmaker as “one of the precious sons of the Shas revolution” who “worked devotedly for the movement and the public” and “demonstrated loyalty, talent, and impressive capabilities.”

“I have accepted his request to resign from the Knesset for personal reasons that he laid out before me. Alongside this, he announced that he is ready to continue to assist the movement in any way required, and I hope to continue to utilize his help and assign him tasks in the near future,” Deri added, wishing Arbel success.

Once his resignation takes effect, Arbel will be replaced in the Knesset by former MK Erez Malul, who was pushed out of parliament under the Norwegian Law when the party’s ministers quit the government last summer.

According to Channel 13, in the resignation letter handed to Ohana, Arbel said that he wants to spend time with his family, study Torah and complete a doctorate at Reichman University. He also issued a plea for civility in politics, writing that he wished to see an end to division and “gratuitous hatred” so that “we may be privileged to respect one another and be moderate toward one another.”

The network noted that Arbel had said in an interview three years ago that he would likely retire at the end of the 25th Knesset.

Arbel held a variety of roles, including as a parliamentary advisor and interim head of the Religious Services Ministry, before first being elected to the Knesset in 2019.

He took over the health and interior ministries in April 2023, several months after Deri was forced out of the posts as the High Court had found the Shas leaders’ twin appointments as health and interior minister “unreasonable in the extreme” due to past convictions and recidivism.

He was replaced as health minister by fellow Shas MK Uriel Buso after the October 7, 2023, attack and continued at the Interior Ministry until Shas quit the government to protest the lack of a law exempting yeshiva students from conscription in July 2025.

After resigning, the positions vacated by Shas were handed over to Likud, a development that experts said significantly harmed the government’s ability to function for the country’s citizens for months on end.

Acted ‘a little differently’

Arbel, who was seen on both sides of the aisle as a competent administrator, was not afraid to break ranks with his party and the broader coalition, such as when, in 2024, he declared that after Hamas’s October 7 attack, there was no longer a “moral” justification to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who were not studying in a yeshiva from army service.

At the time, Shas distanced itself from Arbel’s remarks, stating that “the subject of the conscription law and the status of yeshiva students is entrusted exclusively to the rabbis of the Council of Torah Sages and is managed by the movement’s chairman, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, and his representative to the negotiations, Rabbi Ariel Atias.”

He also clashed with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir over a demand to strip the citizenship of soccer players who chose not to hold a sign calling to free hostages held by Hamas, insisted that the government abide by High Court rulings, and urged action against violent settlers.

Responding to Arbel’s resignation, firebrand Likud MK Tally Gotliv posted on X that Arbel “will be deeply missed by his colleagues in the Knesset opposition,” while slamming him for opposing the termination of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and being “in favor of bringing in Arabs from Judea and Samaria to work in Israel during wartime.”

Anti-government activist Yaya Fink had a different take, tweeting that “within an extremist coalition, he proved that it is possible to act a little differently.”

“Moshe was not afraid to speak out in favor of drafting Haredim who do not study Torah, supported the Shin Bet against attacks from within the government, opposed Ben Gvir’s pyromaniac incitements, and spoke out sharply against Jewish terrorism,” Fink wrote.