Likud MK quits Knesset after being elected mayor of Beit She’an

Likud MK Jacky Levy resigned Thursday from the Knesset to take up his new post as the incoming mayor of the northern town of Beit She’an — a position he previously held for 11 years.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, after signing Levy’s resignation letter, said Levy “is sure to bring the city to new heights very quickly.”

Levy’s resignation means the next person on Likud’s Knesset list, Osnat Mark, will be sworn in within a few days as the newest member of Knesset.

Mark was 34th on the Likud list for the 2015 elections, when the party won 30 seats. But several lawmakers have quit the Knesset since, making her next to enter the parliament.

Levy, 58 — brother of independent MK Orly Levy-Abekasis and son of the former minister David Levy — had been deputy minister of construction and housing in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Before he was elected to the Knesset in 2015, he served as mayor of Beit She’an from 2002 until 2013. Earlier he was a council member in the city’s municipality and deputy mayor.

On October 30 he again won the position of mayor — with Netanyahu’s backing — clinching some 70% of the votes in Beit She’an and replacing Mayor Rafi Ben Sheetrit.

Mark is a lawyer who specializes in private law, family law and mediation. Born in Ofakim, she studied law at Ramat Gan’s College of Law and Business and business administration at Bar Ilan University and has a law firm based in Jerusalem.

She was first listed on the Likud slate for the Knesset in the 2006 election, when she had the 57th slot. In 2009 she was listed 40th, also a slot that didn’t land her a Knesset seat.

Mark lives in the Maale Adumim settlement. She is married and has three children.

More lawmakers have left the current Knesset than any previous sitting of the parliament.

In total 29 members have now departed the 20th Knesset, including Levy — almost a quarter of the total number of 120 MKs.