Aryeh Deri

Aryeh Deri (Hebrew: אַרְיֵה דֶּרִי; born 17 February 1959) is an Israeli politician and leader of Shas, a Sephardi and Mizrahi ultra-Orthodox political party he co-founded in 1984 to advocate for the interests of religious and working-class communities from North African and Middle Eastern Jewish backgrounds. Born in Meknes, Morocco, to a secular Jewish family, Deri immigrated to Israel in 1968 at age nine and pursued religious studies at institutions such as Porat Yosef Talmudic College in Jerusalem. His political ascent included election to the Knesset in 1992 and appointment as Minister of the Interior from 1988 to 1993, during which he influenced policies on local governance, immigration absorption, and welfare provisions targeted at underprivileged populations. Deri's career has been defined by both electoral successes for Shas—securing significant parliamentary seats and coalition leverage—and recurring legal controversies, most notably a 1999 conviction for accepting bribes totaling $155,000 in exchange for directing public funds, resulting in a three-year sentence of which he served 22 months from 2000 to 2002. After his release, he resumed leadership of Shas, holding ministerial posts including Health and Interior in subsequent governments, though facing further disqualifications, such as the 2023 High Court ruling invalidating his cabinet appointment over a tax fraud plea bargain. As of October 2025, following Shas's withdrawal from the governing coalition in July amid disputes over ultra-Orthodox military exemptions, Deri retains influence as a Knesset member and participant in the security cabinet.

Aryeh Makhlouf Deri was born on February 17, 1959, in Meknes, Morocco, to Eliyahu Deri and Esther Deri (née Azougi), members of a wealthy secular Jewish family residing in one of the city's affluent districts. The Deris, like many Moroccan Jews at the time, were part of a community influenced by French colonial culture and urban prosperity, though facing increasing pressures from post-independence Arab nationalism.

In 1968, shortly after Israel's Six-Day War victory heightened Jewish emigration from North Africa amid regional tensions, the Deri family immigrated to Israel as part of the broader wave of Moroccan aliyah. At approximately age nine, Deri and his family settled in Bat Yam, a coastal city south of Tel Aviv, where many North African immigrants established communities during the late 1960s. This migration reflected the socioeconomic challenges and Zionist aspirations driving over 200,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel between 1948 and the early 1970s, often transitioning from relative urban comfort to modest absorption in development towns or central Israeli suburbs.

Following his family's immigration to Israel in 1968 and settlement in Bat Yam, Aryeh Deri pursued a religious education, attending a boarding school in Hadera. In 1973, at age 14, he began studying at Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem, a prominent institution for Sephardic Torah scholarship.