Knesset votes to appoint Likud’s Haim Katz as housing minister

By Sam Sokol 17 September 2025, 5:31 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Tourism Minister Haim Katz attends a Knesset Finance Committee meeting, December 9, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

Lawmakers in the Knesset vote 41-28 to approve the government’s appointment of Likud’s Haim Katz as permanent housing minister.

Katz’s appointment, which first was announced on Sunday, is a potential sign that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not believe the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party will return to his governing coalition.

UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf held the portfolio until June, when he resigned the post amid an ongoing fight over the conscription of yeshiva students. The following month, Goldknopf’s party, which represents Ashkenazi Haredim, left the coalition entirely in protest.

Shas, the Sephardi Haredi party, subsequently quit the government as well, resigning its ministerial portfolios while remaining part of the coalition.

Since then, Katz has been in charge of four cabinet positions, either on an interim or permanent basis: tourism, housing, health and welfare.