Hanoch Milwidsky

Milwidsky was born in Jerusalem and later lived in Petah Tikva; a 2022 profile described him as 49 years old, married, and the father of three children.[7] He served in the Duvdevan military unit and studied law after completing his military service.[7][8]

Milwidsky specialized in construction and urban-planning law and served as deputy mayor of Petah Tikva.[2] His municipal career also included leading the opposition in the city council.[8] By 2022, he had chaired the Moradot HaCarmel regional planning and building committee, worked as head of staff for the Finance Ministry’s acting director-general, and served as a special adviser to Likud on the Judicial Selection Committee.[9]

Alongside his legal and municipal work, Milwidsky was a longtime activist and legal adviser in Bnei Baruch–Kabbalah La’am.[10] He described organizing a Likud membership group with other members of the movement, recruiting friends and relatives under the name “Headquarters for the Unity of the People”; another account identified the group as “Unify the Nation.”[10][2] He won the Dan district contest in Likud’s 2022 primaries and obtained 26th place on the party’s Knesset slate.[10] In the November 1 election, Likud received 1,115,085 votes, or 23.41 percent of the total, and secured 32 seats.[3]

In a December 2022 interview, Milwidsky said he had already submitted 20 bills and identified reducing social polarization as his principal reason for entering politics.[10] He proposed establishing a national authority to address polarization and encourage unity, modeled on existing national authorities.[10] On judicial policy, he supported changes to the Judicial Selection Committee and a requirement that at least 12 of the Supreme Court’s 15 justices agree before invalidating legislation.[10]

During the 25th Knesset, Milwidsky served as a deputy speaker and as a permanent member of several parliamentary committees.[8] He also co-chaired the Israel–UK Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.[11] A bilateral meeting recorded in March 2024 brought him together with a delegation joined by United States Congressman Brad Schneider, Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak, and Israeli Permanent Representative to the OSCE David Roet.[1]

Reforming the Israel Bar Association became a focus of his legislative activity.[11][4] In July 2023, he said that he had been a lawyer since 2000 but regarded the association as “completely irrelevant” to his professional life; he criticized mandatory membership fees and advocated transferring its functions to a legal council.[11] That month, a bill he introduced passed a preliminary Knesset reading by 50 votes to 43.[4] It proposed transferring authority over licensing, professional discipline, and representation on the judicial-selection committee to a new Lawyers Council headed by a district judge appointed by the justice minister.[4] The vote was a preliminary legislative step, not enactment of the proposal.[4]

A separate Milwidsky-sponsored measure became law in January 2025 after passing its second and third readings by 52 votes to 45.[12] It enabled the justice minister and the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to determine, in part, how the Israel Bar Association could use its funds.[12]

In July 2025, the Finance Committee elected Milwidsky as its chair by 10 votes to seven, following a House Committee recommendation approved by nine votes to six.[13][5] He succeeded Moshe Gafni after Gafni’s United Torah Judaism party left the coalition.[13] The committee’s responsibilities include the state budget, taxation, and banking.[13]

In February 2026, Milwidsky said the government and coalition had “failed miserably” on the cost of living, while arguing that policy should concentrate more on large retailers and business groups than on small traders and dairy farmers.[14] He also said he had sought a 50-million-shekel reduction in the Central Elections Committee’s budget, citing a budget execution rate of 43 percent at the time.[14] In his account, he approved the budget after the committee’s chair proposed a cut of that size.[14]

Milwidsky remained Finance Committee chair at a discussion of budgetary changes on October 21, 2026.[15] In November, he was identified as its outgoing chair and as not returning for the 26th Knesset after placing 38th on Likud’s election list.[6]

Milwidsky’s parliamentary record included efforts to reshape the Israel Bar Association and a period of fiscal oversight. His 2023 proposal passed only a preliminary reading, while a separate 2025 funding measure became law.[4][12] He chaired the Finance Committee from July 29, 2025, through the close of the 25th Knesset.[5] After placing 38th on Likud’s 2026 list, he did not return for the 26th Knesset.[6]

Milwidsky’s 2022 primary campaign drew attention to his support among Kabbalah La’am-linked Likud members; a secretly recorded conversation included activists referring to a group of about 7,000 party members.[16] Questions also arose over his recent participation in the Yes Atid faction on Petah Tikva’s council; he responded that he had joined Likud about a decade earlier and that the municipal cooperation was an ad hoc arrangement approved by Likud.[16]

In December 2022, he supported allowing the interior minister to revoke citizenship from and deport family members of people who commit attacks, arguing that this could provide deterrence, and endorsed capital punishment for terrorists.[10] During a January 2023 hearing on citizenship revocation for convicted terrorists receiving Palestinian Authority stipends, he said he preferred “Jewish murderers over Arab murderers” and claimed there had been no Jewish terrorists; MK Ahmad Tibi criticized the remarks and the proposal’s treatment of Arabs.[17]

In August 2024, Milwidsky called the courts a “place without justice” and urged people to use arbitration or rabbinical tribunals instead, drawing criticism from Bar Association head Amit Becher.[18] In June 2025, the Knesset Ethics Committee suspended him from six plenum sessions for repeated derogatory language toward Arab-party MKs and for removing Aida Touma-Sliman from a meeting despite the plenum legal adviser’s opposition.[19] In August 2026, while chairing a discussion of transfers to the Ministry of Settlements, he called Standing Together protesters “worse than the terrorists” and “Nukhbas”; opposition MK Naama Lazimi and Hiddush also petitioned the High Court over the legality of the budget transfers.[20]

Separate allegations concerned his work for Bnei Baruch and a sexual-assault complaint.[16][21] In 2022, a former member alleged that he had helped prepare a woman to give false testimony in a case involving movement leader Michael Laitman and that she received $20,000; Milwidsky denied wrongdoing, saying the woman had denied the allegations against Laitman and that accusations about his own conduct had not been raised in court.[16]

Police questioned Milwidsky in July 2025 over suspected obstruction of justice and a separate sexual-assault complaint, in an investigation begun in 2022.[21] Reporting that month described an allegation of sexual assault at a woman’s home in 2014 and stated that he had not been charged as of publication.[22] He denied breaking the law or sexually harming anyone, said he had cooperated with investigators, and characterized the investigation as politically motivated.[23] His July 29, 2025 appointment as Finance Committee chair proceeded amid public and opposition criticism over the investigation; he said he could not discuss it and that media accounts differed greatly from what had happened.[5]