In symbolic move, Goldknopf resigns secondary ministerial role but will stay housing minister

Yitzhak Goldknopf, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, resigns from his secondary ministerial position as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, citing the government’s lack of progress on passing a bill exempting yeshiva students from military conscription.

The move is symbolic as Goldknopf retains his position as minister of housing and construction, and therefore remains in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

Writing to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, Goldknopf states that he had accepted the position on the orders of his rabbis as a “guarantee for advancing the law regulating the status of Torah scholars.”

“Last night, the leadership of the United Torah Judaism faction, our teachers and rabbis, met and took upon themselves the responsibility for continuing to advance the issue. In light of this, I return the guarantee and hereby submit my resignation from the position of minister in the Prime Minister’s Office,” he explains.

Goldknopf and several other members of his Agudat Yisrael faction had previously threatened to vote against the state budget, bringing down the government, if it did not first deal with the conscription issue. Despite his threats, following the far-right Otzma Yehudit party’s return to the government, Goldknopf lost his leverage and backed down, with all of his faction’s MKs voting in favor of the Economic Arrangements Law last Thursday.