New head of Knesset defense panel Bismuth backed Haredi UTJ in local elections — report

By Sam Sokol 7 August 2025, 12:39 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"

Likud MK Boaz Bismuth (left) and United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf (right) attend a meeting of the Knesset House Committee, August 4, 2025. (Dani Shem-Tov/ Office of the Knesset Spokesperson)

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s new chairman, Boaz Bismuth, voted for the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party in municipal elections in Tel Aviv, the Haredi magazine Mishpacha reports.

“Why did I vote for UTJ? As someone who’s raising his kids here, I felt that we need to strengthen our Jewish identity, and UTJ was the most pro-Torah list on the ballot,” the magazine quotes the Likud lawmaker as saying several months ago.

Bismuth was selected to head the key parliamentary committee this week after the previous head of the panel, Yuli Edelstein, refused to advance legislation on ultra-Orthodox army service exemptions acceptable to Haredi politicians, sparking their exit from the government.

Bismuth is thought to have won the job in order to quell a brewing Haredi mutiny, which could threaten the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

Edelstein had proposed a bill that would have imposed harsh sanctions on draft evaders, including the revocation of drivers’ licenses, a ban on flying abroad, a prohibition on applying for civil service jobs, no government subsidies for purchasing an apartment, and cancellations of discounts on public transportation, National Insurance payments, and electricity bills.

According to the Ynet news site, Bismuth intends to submit a new draft of the bill within weeks and hold discussions on it during the current Knesset recess so it can be advanced when the parliament reconvenes in October. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is slated to hold its first discussion on the topic of enlistment under Bismuth’s leadership on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Bismuth does not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“All these attempts to show that Boaz Bismuth is close to the Haredi world, in my opinion, are damaging Bismuth and are damaging the Haredi world, and are certainly disturbing the entire Israeli public, which feels that the Haredi public has abandoned it,” committee member Moshe Tur-Paz of the opposition Yesh Atid party tells The Times of Israel.