Elazar Stern

Elazar Stern was born in 1956 in Tel Aviv to Holocaust-survivor parents.[1][2] He grew up in a Religious Zionist environment and is married to Dorit; together they have five children.[2] He holds a BA in Israel Studies and Economics from Bar-Ilan University and MA degrees in Business Administration from Tel Aviv University and Strategic Resource Management from the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.[3]

Stern began IDF service in 1974, volunteering for the Paratroopers Brigade's 890th Battalion.[1] After completing infantry training and a junior commanders' course, he became a squad commander and attended infantry officers' school, eventually progressing from platoon commander in the 890th Battalion to commander of the 202nd Battalion.[1] During Operation Menorah, while serving as deputy company commander, he led a sub-unit that destroyed a terrorist position containing cannons and mortars; seven terrorists were killed and one captured, and his force sustained no casualties.[1]

Stern left the IDF in 1987 and taught at Makif Sharet High School in Nazareth-Ilit before returning to career military service in 1989.[3][1] He served as deputy commander of a regional brigade on the northern border in 1989–1990, was appointed commander of Reserve Paratroopers Brigade 226 in 1991, and from 1993 to 1996 commanded the IDF Officers' School, Bahad 1.[1] He was among the first generation of Sabbath-observant generals to reach the IDF General Staff — a milestone in a senior leadership long dominated by secular elites.[4][5]

While commanding Bahad 1, Stern initiated the "Witnesses in Uniform" (Edim b'Madim) project, which sent IDF soldiers in uniform to concentration camps in Poland and other countries for Holocaust education.[1][2] His approach to military discipline extended to personal conduct: he dismissed three officer cadets for failing to give their seats on a bus to an elderly woman.[1]

In July 2004, Stern was appointed head of the IDF Personnel Directorate — renamed the Human Resources Directorate in 2005 — achieving the rank of major general.[4][1] In this role he promoted Jewish and democratic education within the army, focused on immigrant absorption, and strengthened ties with Diaspora Jewry.[2] He lowered the criminal-record threshold that had disqualified candidates from military service, allowing individuals with drug use or more extensive criminal histories to enlist, reflecting his commitment to the "people's army" model.[1] He also headed a special committee that reformulated the IDF's Code of Ethics and established the Machtzavim program to develop educational leadership among senior officers and security-service personnel.[2]

Stern left the IDF in 2009 and retired at the rank of major general.[3]

Among the most consequential programs Stern championed was Nativ, a conversion project for former citizens of the Soviet Union serving in the IDF.[3][2] His Knesset biography credits him with initiating the program and records that more than 8,000 people converted through it, though a separate profile puts the figure at more than 12,000.[3][2] The program reflected his broader conviction that conversion policy should serve national as well as purely halakhic considerations, and he worked to simplify conversion procedures for Russian immigrants serving in the military — efforts that met resistance from the Chief Rabbinate.[5]

More than 2,000 soldiers, the majority of them women serving in combat roles, converted to Judaism through IDF programs during his tenure.[6] Stern described his philosophy as "educational imperialism" — the idea that the military should actively promote a national ethos of service, sacrifice, and identification with the people of Israel.[6]

Stern also conceived and led the integration of bone-marrow donor-eligibility testing into IDF enlistment processing, adding tens of thousands of soldiers to the national registry.[7] Estimates of the lives saved through this initiative differ across sources: one profile cites more than 2,400 lives, with almost two-thirds being Diaspora Jews, while another reports more than 2,600 lives, with more than half being Diaspora Jews.[2][8]

He opposed segregated all-religious military units and argued that Hesder yeshiva students — whose framework combines abbreviated military service with years of religious study — should serve alongside regular soldiers rather than in isolated formations. He argued that shared service mattered to both sides: "the secular soldier who never really met a dati [religious person], and similarly to the other side."[5] Yeshiva heads objected that integrated units would make strict religious observance more difficult.[5]

Stern's career intersected repeatedly with the politically charged question of whether soldiers could refuse orders on religious or ideological grounds. As early as 1993, when former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren called on soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlers from the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — Stern dissented publicly, arguing that such rulings threatened army cohesion and, ultimately, the existence of the state.[9] At the time he held the rank of colonel and served as the religious commander of the IDF Officers' School.[9]

During the 2005 Gaza disengagement, serving as the general responsible for military manpower, Stern participated in meetings with leaders of settler and Religious Zionist movements to hear concerns and reduce the potential for violence.[5] At one such meeting he warned that mass refusal by soldiers to obey orders could lead to "the military or even the state breaking apart"; Rabbi Elyakim Levanon reportedly replied, "So be it . . . Maybe it's a step toward geulah [redemption]."[5] The military and state remained intact throughout the disengagement.[5]

Upon retiring from army service, Stern reiterated that evacuating settlers should not be assigned as an IDF mission, while affirming that if the political echelon imposed such a task, the army would carry it out fully.[10] He maintained that he had not regarded the disengagement evacuation as a proper IDF mission and continued to hold that view after leaving service.[10]

Stern entered electoral politics ahead of the 2013 elections as a candidate for Tzipi Livni's Hatnua party.[11] After Hatnua's political partnership dissolved ahead of the 2015 elections, he joined Yesh Atid in January 2015 and remained with the party for 11 years.[11] He was placed twelfth on Yesh Atid's party list for the 2015 vote.[12] Ahead of the 2021 election, he was listed seventh on the party's slate.[13]

In the Knesset, Stern's parliamentary focus centered on religion-state relations and Jewish-democratic discourse.[3] He served on the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and chaired the State Control Committee.[11][14] He proposed legislation concerning conversion, Shabbat and Jewish holiday observance, and the supervision and regulation of kashrut services.[3] He advanced a government decision intended to facilitate conversion by establishing three-member tribunals headed by city rabbis and was a prominent member of the Committee for Equal Sharing of the Burden, where he sought to extend military service for Hesder yeshiva students.[3] His broader conversion-reform efforts ultimately foundered amid opposition from Haredi and some Religious Zionist groups.[8]

Stern served as Israel's Minister of Intelligence in the Bennett–Lapid government's 36th administration from June 13, 2021, to December 28, 2022.[15] During this period he also expressed support for "complete separation from the Palestinians" while opposing Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan Valley or settlement blocs, arguing that Israel must preserve the possibility of separation and avoid a one-state outcome.[8]

In August 2026, Stern announced he was leaving Yesh Atid and joined former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's newly formed Yashar party, which placed him twelfth on its slate for the 26th Knesset.[16][17]

Later profiles continued to identify Nativ, Witnesses in Uniform, and the integration of bone-marrow donor testing into IDF enlistment as signature achievements of Stern's military career. Together, the programs reflected his effort to connect military service with immigrant integration, Jewish identity, Holocaust education, and ties between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.[2][7]

Following his retirement from the IDF, Stern chaired the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel on a volunteer basis from 2010 until entering the Knesset, and served as chair of the Ethiopian National Project from 2011 to 2012.[3] He also appeared as chairman of the Genesis Philanthropy Group and was among the vocal proponents of easing conversion procedures for Russian immigrants and other Israelis.[5] He co-founded the community of Mitzpe Hoshaya in the Galilee.[1][2]

Stern published a memoir, Masa Kumta (Beret March), in 2009, which was subsequently translated into English.[3] The Hebrew title refers to the grueling trek a combat soldier undertakes at the end of basic training to receive the unit's special beret; with a different spelling the word masa can also be read as "burden."[5]

In October 2021, during a radio interview prompted by an anonymous letter concerning the appointment of a new Shin Bet chief, Stern said that anonymous complaints had reached him while he headed the Personnel Directorate and, when asked how he handled them, replied that "the shredder worked."[18] Women's organizations and public figures criticized the remarks.[19][18] Stern subsequently clarified that he had not shredded sexual-harassment complaints, saying he had been referring to what he described as spurious letters aimed at blocking senior officers' promotions.[18] The IDF spokesperson stated that every complaint, including an anonymous one, is carefully examined.[20]

Separately, an unnamed former soldier alleged that Stern threatened her in 1995–1997 after she reported an NCO's attempted sexual harassment while she was at the IDF Officers' School, claiming he warned that her "days in the army will be dark and bitter" if she repeated what had been said. Stern denied making the threat, said he did not remember the specific case, and acknowledged that "it could be that the incident was not handled well."[19] These accounts are disputed and no established outcome has been reported.

Following the backlash, Stern withdrew his candidacy to chair the Jewish Agency, saying the atmosphere that had developed made it inappropriate for him to stand for election at that time.[18] He apologized to those hurt by his words while maintaining that he had always had zero tolerance for sexual harassment, and he did not resign as intelligence minister.[18]