David Azulai

David Azulai was born on May 5, 1954, in Meknes, Morocco, and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1963.[1][2] He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a combat medic.[2] After yeshiva high school and military service, he studied at the Chazon Yehezkiel Seminar for teachers and worked in education until 1993.[1][2] A 2015 profile reported that he had also served as a school principal.[3] He was married and had four children; in 2015, the family was living in Acre.[1][3]

Before entering national politics, Azulai served three terms on the Acre municipal council from 1978 to 1993, with responsibilities that included municipal social services and membership on the management team of local community centers.[2][3] On behalf of the Interior Ministry, he also served as deputy head and then head of the Nahal Iron Regional Council.[2] He was additionally a member of the appointed committee of the Kiryat Ata Religious Council and of the appointed council in Hatzerot Yesef, a community established north of Acre for Ethiopian immigrants.[2]

Azulai was first elected to the Knesset in 1996 as a representative of Shas, entering in the 14th Knesset, and thereafter served in each successive Knesset until his resignation in March 2018 — a parliamentary career spanning nearly 22 years.[2][3] His roles included chairing the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee in the 15th and 18th Knessets, serving on the Ethics and Finance committees, and serving as a substitute member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[2][3] He also chaired the Internal Security Subcommittee and the Special Committee for Public Inquiries.[2]

Over the course of his parliamentary career, Azulai filed 780 bills and participated in several Knesset lobbies focused on children and youth at risk, social gaps, strengthening the Jewish people, and environmental-social issues.[2] He paid particular attention to prisoners' rights during his work on the Internal Affairs Committee and frequently visited prisons.[2] In the 2013 elections to the 19th Knesset, he appeared as the eighth candidate on the Shas party list; Shas won 11 seats.[4]

In May 2001, Azulai was appointed Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Welfare.[1] He subsequently served as deputy interior minister from 2002 to 2012.[3] When he resigned from the Knesset because of illness in March 2018, his son Yinon took his seat, while Azulai continued to serve as a minister.[2]

One of the most consequential actions of Azulai's career came during his tenure as deputy interior minister under Ariel Sharon's government. Interior Minister Eli Yishai appointed him to lead a professional committee examining the status of the Falash Mura — descendants of Ethiopian Jews who had converted to Christianity under duress in the late nineteenth century.[5] The committee included Shlomo Amar, who conducted the halachic research, a former head of the Interior Ministry's Population Authority, and Rabbi Yosef Hadane, head of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel.[5]

The committee determined that the Falash Mura were Jewish and should be brought to Israel, with a streamlined conversion process.[5] Its findings led to Operation Wings of Doves, which brought more than 7,000 members of the community from Ethiopia to Israel between October 2012 and August 2013.[5]

In February 2018, Azulai also supported government recognition of Ethiopian Jewish spiritual leaders, known as kesim, as "spiritual shepherds" within the religious-services system. He called the approval a "historic decision" that did justice to the Ethiopian community and brought a 40-year struggle to an end.[6]

Azulai became Minister of Religious Services in May 2015, his first cabinet post, serving in Israel's 34th government as a member of Shas.[5][2] The government's ministerial roster listed him as Minister of Religious Affairs.[7] During more than three years in the role, he appointed 20 of the 90 religious councils that remained without appointments, a pace that drew attention amid wider delays in appointing religious-council members.[8]

In December 2017, the Religious Services Ministry formed committees to select city rabbis in Bnei Brak, Yehud, and Rishon LeZion without the Chief Rabbinate Council's representatives after the council declined to cooperate. Azulai justified the urgency by pointing to the approaching 2018 municipal-election year, when significant appointments might not be possible. Senior figures in the Chief Rabbinate described the action as a "declaration of war," while the ministry maintained that existing regulations permitted the process.[9]

In January 2018, Azulai came to the Knesset despite his illness to cast a vote that helped the coalition secure a 58–57 majority for legislation giving the interior minister power to reject local ordinances permitting businesses to open on Shabbat.[10]

David Azulai died on October 30, 2018, at the age of 64 after battling cancer.[2] President Reuven Rivlin described him as connected to "all of Israel's tribes." Shas chairman Aryeh Deri called him an "honest, modest, merciful man" and "a man of action."[2] His son Yinon succeeded him in the Knesset as a Shas member.[2]

In July 2015, Azulai said on Army Radio: "A Reform Jew, from the moment he stops following Jewish law, I cannot allow myself to say that he is a Jew."[11] Ynet reported that Reform movement president Rabbi Rick Jacobs criticized the remark and questioned whether Azulai could carry out his ministerial responsibilities effectively while rejecting non-Orthodox Jewish movements.[12] The dispute became part of a broader debate over state recognition of non-Orthodox Judaism in Israel.[11][12]

In July 2018, Azulai resigned from a ministerial committee considering work to make the mixed-gender prayer area at the Western Wall accessible. Ynet reported that he acted on the instruction of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Shalom Cohen and could not support what he called a "Reform Wall" that would harm the site's sanctity. He was the third minister to leave the committee, after Miri Regev and Ayelet Shaked, and the meeting ended without a vote.[13]