Meir Sheetrit

Sheetrit was born on October 10, 1948, in Ksar es-Souk, Morocco, into a family of rabbis.[1] He immigrated to Israel with his family in 1957; they initially settled in Netivot before moving to Yavne, the community in which he would begin his political career.[1] The family lived in Netivot for approximately a year before the move to Yavne.[5] He later continued to live in Yavne with his wife and two children.[1]

He attended Givat Washington High School and Kefar Batyah.[2] In 1964, he began studying microbiology and biochemistry at Bar-Ilan University.[2] Sources describe his subsequent master's qualification as either political science or public policy, while another biography calls it public administration.[2][5] His later institutional connections with higher education included board membership at Ben-Gurion University, the Open University, and Bar-Ilan University.[3]

Sheetrit enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1968 and served in the Medical Corps, leaving military service in 1973 with the rank of captain.[2] His responsibilities included command service and heading the Medical Corps’ officers branch.[1][5] He subsequently held the rank of captain in the reserves.[1]

During his 2014 presidential campaign, Sheetrit spoke publicly about the hardship he had experienced after immigration, saying that he knew poverty “on my own body and flesh.”[6] He connected that experience with his wish to address social issues and to represent all parts of Israeli society as president.[6] He also said that his own home in Yavne had been built through a “Build Your Home” program that he had initiated during his tenure as mayor.[6]

Sheetrit served as mayor of Yavne from 1974 to 1987, beginning a public career that subsequently encompassed parliamentary leadership, Jewish Agency administration, and numerous cabinet appointments.[2][3] Before entering local government, he organized a group of young people in Yavne who wanted to bring change to the community.[1] After being rejected by the Labor Party, he joined Likud and ran on its ticket in the 1974 local election.[2] He received the Local Government Prize, the Education Prize, and the president’s Quality of Life Prize in 1986.[2]

He first entered the Knesset in 1981 as a Likud representative, while still serving as Yavne’s local leader.[2][6] His early parliamentary work included service on the Finance Committee.[2] He did not stand for a Likud Knesset seat in the 1988 election, and his parliamentary service was interrupted during the Twelfth Knesset.[1][2]

From 1988 to 1992, Sheetrit served as treasurer of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization.[2] His tenure coincided with major immigration movements from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia.[7] In his later account of this work, he recalled organizing immigration from the Soviet Union in 1990–1991 and taking responsibility for Operation Solomon.[7] He described the Soviet immigration wave as bringing 250,000 people annually during those years and gave a figure of 30,000 for the initial Ethiopian airlift; these were the figures he supplied in his retrospective account.[7]

Sheetrit recalled the arrival of Ethiopian immigrants in particularly personal terms: “I have nothing against the Ethiopians; I love them, and I was moved to tears on the day they arrived. I went to Tiberias to receive the first ones who arrived.”[7] His account placed this experience alongside his administrative responsibilities as Jewish Agency treasurer and his later proposals for changing Israel’s immigration framework.[7]

He returned to the Knesset on the Likud list in 1992.[6] In the Thirteenth Knesset, he chaired the Education and Culture Committee’s higher-education subcommittee and the Knesset computerization committee.[2] Following Likud’s electoral defeat, he considered challenging for the party leadership but withdrew because of his daughter’s fatal illness.[2] In the Fourteenth Knesset, he chaired both the Likud parliamentary group and the coalition and served as a deputy speaker.[2]

Sheetrit became finance minister in February 1999 following Yaakov Neeman’s resignation and remained in office until July of that year.[2][3] He returned to the cabinet as justice minister in March 2001, holding that portfolio until February 2003.[3] After the 2003 election, he became a minister without portfolio in the Finance Ministry, serving in that capacity from February 2003 to July 2004.[3] These appointments preceded his subsequent service in transportation, education, housing, and the Interior Ministry.[3]

In July 2004, Sheetrit became acting transportation minister; he formally received the portfolio in August.[3] In September 2004, he was also assigned responsibility for liaison between the government and the Knesset.[3] He was serving as transportation minister at the time of a May 19, 2005 symposium in which he participated.[8] Within Likud, he supported bringing the Labor Party into government and backed the disengagement plan.[2] In late 2005, he left Likud with Ariel Sharon to establish Kadima.[2]

Sheetrit helped write Kadima’s economic platform ahead of the 2006 election.[5] In January 2006, he became minister of education, culture and sport, serving until May.[3] He won a Knesset seat for Kadima in the 2006 election and became minister of housing and construction in May, retaining that portfolio until July 2007.[1][3] In August 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also appointed him acting justice minister following Haim Ramon’s resignation.[9] The temporary appointment returned Sheetrit to a portfolio he had previously held in Ariel Sharon’s first government.[9]

Olmert appointed Sheetrit interior minister in a cabinet reshuffle on July 4, 2007.[10] He held the office until 2009.[3] A 2006 Congressional Research Service cabinet account listed him as housing minister and acting justice minister, while a later CRS report recorded his service as Kadima’s interior minister after the reshuffle.[10][11]

Immigration policy was a prominent subject in Sheetrit’s account of his Interior Ministry tenure.[7] He said that, on taking office, he believed Israel lacked an established immigration policy with clear objectives.[7] He proposed requiring a recommendation from the interior minister before the government brought immigrant groups to Israel.[7] The government also tasked him with establishing a public committee, chaired by Yaakov Neeman, to prepare a citizenship law.[7] The committee ceased operating after the government fell and a subsequent election took place.[7]

Sheetrit later submitted the 2011 Immigration to Israel Bill after consultations with Ruth Gavison and Shlomo Avineri.[7] He described the bill as an effort to create a framework covering immigration, citizenship, refugees, labor migrants, and family reunification.[7] All 28 Kadima Knesset members approved the proposal, but it did not pass before the Knesset dispersed.[7] Sheetrit summarized its governing principle as “hard outside, easy inside,” linking rules for admission with the position of those permitted to remain in Israel.[7]

In explaining his approach to refugees, Sheetrit said that, as interior minister, he had granted 600 refugees from Darfur permits for permanent stay pending an improvement in conditions in their country.[7] He presented 600 as the quota he believed Israel should accept alongside contributions from other countries.[7] His discussion of the bill therefore addressed both restrictions on entry and the admission of a defined number of people seeking refuge.[7]

Sheetrit contested Kadima’s leadership primary in September 2008 against Tzipi Livni, Shaul Mofaz, and Avi Dichter.[10] Livni won the September 17 vote.[10] Livni and Mofaz were the leading contenders, while Sheetrit and Dichter each received less than 10 percent; turnout was 55 percent.[12] Sheetrit remained associated with Kadima until late 2012, when he left to join Tzipi Livni’s new Hatnua party.[1]

In early December 2012, he split from Kadima with six other Knesset members and joined Livni’s movement.[5] Following the 2013 election, he served as Hatnua’s parliamentary faction chairman and as a deputy speaker of the Knesset.[1] His move to Hatnua followed his earlier transition from Likud to Kadima, giving him parliamentary service under all three party affiliations.[1]

Sheetrit’s legislative initiatives included the Long School Day Law, legislation raising the minimum wage, and protections for parents whose children were ill.[5] Other measures he initiated concerned repeal of property tax, disability, cable television, mortgages, and the Shin Bet.[5] Explaining the Long School Day Law in 2014, he said that children should be at school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., receiving both formal and informal education.[5] His legislative work thus included education and household economic matters as well as subjects connected with communications and security institutions.[5]

Sheetrit was one of five candidates for Israel’s presidency in 2014.[13] He advanced to the second round against Reuven Rivlin, who defeated him by 63 votes to 53.[4] During the campaign, Sheetrit emphasized social issues and said that he intended to represent the full range of Israeli society.[6] His public account of poverty after immigration and his recollections of local government in Yavne formed part of that campaign presentation.[6]

On December 25, 2014, Sheetrit announced his retirement from political life and said that he would not serve in the next Knesset.[14][15] He described the term then underway as his ninth and said he was making way for a younger generation.[15] At the time of the announcement, his career encompassed 41 years in public office, service as Yavne mayor from 1974 to 1987, parliamentary membership beginning in 1981, and seven cabinet portfolios.[15] He had served continuously as an elected public official for the preceding 12 years.[14]

Despite that retirement announcement, Sheetrit again ran for mayor of Yavne in 2018.[16] Incumbent Zvi Gov-Ari won the election with 58.34 percent of the vote, while Sheetrit received 20.35 percent.[16] In 2022, Sheetrit was appointed head of the Public Council of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and administrative head of the institution’s Minveh project.[17]

Sheetrit’s public service extended from the leadership of Yavne to cabinet office and senior responsibilities in the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization.[2][17] His ministerial appointments covered finance, justice, transportation, education, housing, and interior affairs, with an additional period as a minister without portfolio in the Finance Ministry.[3] His parliamentary responsibilities included coalition and party-faction leadership, committee work, and service as deputy speaker.[1][2]

Education and public institutions were recurring areas of his activity: he chaired a higher-education subcommittee, initiated the Long School Day Law, and held positions on the boards of Ben-Gurion University, the Open University, and Bar-Ilan University.[2][3] The school-day legislation reflected his stated preference for combining formal and informal education within an extended school day.[5] His later appointment to the Academy of the Hebrew Language’s Public Council and Minveh project continued his involvement in public institutions after his parliamentary career.[17]

His honors included the Local Government Prize, the Knesset Tolerance Shield, and the President’s Voluntarism Award.[3] He also received the Education Prize and the president’s Quality of Life Prize in 1986, during his years as Yavne mayor.[2] In announcing his departure from the Knesset in 2014, Sheetrit framed the decision as an opportunity for a younger generation to enter public leadership.[15]

Sheetrit faced fraud and breach-of-trust charges connected with his tenure as Jewish Agency treasurer.[1][2] He was tried and completely exonerated; his clearance of the charges was reported in 1997.[1][2]

His immigration proposals generated opposition.[7] In his own account, about a month after becoming interior minister he publicly called for repealing the Law of Return, provoking anger in Israel and abroad.[7] He advocated requiring prospective immigrants to apply under defined criteria, including learning Hebrew, swearing allegiance to the state, and obeying the law.[7] His immigration figures and descriptions of his responsibility for specific operations were retrospective claims in his own account rather than independently corroborated findings within that account.[7]

In 2008, the cabinet approved his proposal for a national biometric database, intended to reduce identity-card and passport forgery.[18] The proposal required a photograph, two fingerprints, and a facial scan; refusal could result in a one-year prison sentence and disqualification from applying for an identity card or passport.[18] Responding to privacy objections, Sheetrit argued that the measure would protect citizens from identity and document theft.[18]

In 2014, a former housekeeper reportedly accused Sheetrit of sexual harassment.[19] Reporting said that an agreement provided NIS 270,000 in compensation in exchange for relinquishing claims, while Sheetrit said the agreement resolved a civil and financial dispute and contained confidentiality provisions.[19] The woman declined to cooperate with police, and investigators initially found no basis for opening a criminal investigation.[19] The allegation was not established as fact in the report.[19]

The allegations resurfaced during controversy over Sheetrit’s appointment to a committee selecting a new attorney general in 2021.[20] After criticism of the appointment, Sheetrit withdrew from the committee and described the accusations as false.[20] He said that he did not want the controversy surrounding him to damage the selection process.[20]