Michal Waldiger

Waldiger was born on January 6, 1969, in Bnei Brak and studied at the Bnei Akiva Ulpana in Tel Aviv.[1][3] She later served in Kibbutz Hafetz Haim, earned a bachelor’s degree in law from Bar-Ilan University and ran a law office specializing in civil and commercial law.[3] She has lived in Givat Shmuel since the early 1990s and is married with five children.[3]

Her public activities included leadership of Bat Ami, an organization working with religious girls in national service, which she chaired for five years.[6] Before entering the Knesset, she was also active on behalf of people affected by mental illness.[1]

Waldiger entered municipal politics in 2013, winning election to the Givat Shmuel city council on behalf of the Jewish Home party.[3] She held the welfare portfolio, chaired the committee to combat drugs and alcohol, and served on committees dealing with finance, women’s status, and planning and construction.[3] In 2018, she unsuccessfully sought leadership of the local Jewish Home organization and subsequently left its municipal list.[3]

Ahead of the 2021 Knesset election, Waldiger was placed second on the Religious Zionist Party list.[3] She entered the Knesset that year as a member of Bezalel Smotrich’s party.[2][3] A report on her activity during that parliamentary term counted 81 speeches and 19 motions for the agenda; she said she had not realized speeches were being counted and had used the parliamentary tool frequently.[7] In the November 2022 election, she occupied eighth place on the Religious Zionism list, which received 516,146 votes, representing 10.83 percent of the total, and won 14 seats.[8]

Waldiger subsequently served as deputy finance minister, but on October 26, 2023, announced that she would leave the post and return to full-time parliamentary work.[4] She said the Hamas attack had changed Israel’s reality and that government systems should direct their resources toward the war effort.[4] She requested that the resources allocated to her office be redirected accordingly, while she concentrated on social resilience, mental-health services and assistance to affected families.[4] Smotrich accepted her request, saying that she believed she could contribute more through the Knesset.[4]

In August 2025, Waldiger became chair of the Knesset’s Labor and Welfare Committee after United Torah Judaism left the government and Yisrael Eichler resigned from the chairmanship.[2] She made reform of mental-health and rehabilitation services a central focus, arguing that the scale of trauma after October 7 made these services a matter of national security.[2][5] She described the existing system as fragmented and bureaucratic, with ministries disputing responsibility for assistance.[2]

By 2020, Waldiger was associated with the Yael Center, which supports families of people coping with mental illness, and had publicly discussed her experience as the mother of a person with a dual diagnosis.[9] She argued that Israel lacked a coordinated, continuous care pathway for people with dual diagnosis, particularly after psychiatric hospitalization, leaving some to “fall between the cracks.”[9] She cited an estimate attributed to the Knesset Research and Information Center that more than 150,000 people in Israel were living with dual diagnosis, while cautioning that this covered only those diagnosed in the public system and excluded people diagnosed privately or not diagnosed at all.[9]

Her proposals included crisis-intervention teams and ambulances equipped to respond to mental-health emergencies rather than relying on police enforcement.[9] Before the 2022 election, she identified mental health as an issue she wanted to prioritize in the Knesset.[6] Discussing attitudes toward psychological suffering, she later said: “It was forbidden to talk about pain, especially pain that cannot be seen, because the idea was that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”[5]

Waldiger has sought changes to professional licensing rules affecting people with histories of mental or emotional disorders.[5] She said that such rules could prevent people from obtaining licenses in fields such as dentistry regardless of their ability to perform the work, and credited herself and Shas MK Yonatan Mishraki, chair of the Knesset Health Committee, with securing changes.[5] She also described efforts to obtain a similar change for university professors.[5]

Another strand of her work concerned community housing as an alternative to psychiatric hospitalization.[5] Waldiger said she had worked to amend the Planning and Building Law to make such housing easier to establish for people with mental-health conditions, arguing that unnecessary hospitalization could itself cause indirect harm.[5]

In February 2024, the Knesset approved at preliminary reading a proposal by Waldiger and MK Ohad Tal to establish an annual Mental Health Day, with a related proposal by MK Walid al-Hawashla attached.[10] Intended to strengthen public awareness and education and reduce negative attitudes and misconceptions about mental illness, the measure received 28 votes in favor, with none against and no abstentions, and was referred to the Health Committee.[10] Waldiger subsequently said legislation she initiated had led the Knesset to mark International Mental Health Day.[5]

As committee chair, Waldiger advocated recognition of the effects of psychological trauma on the families of soldiers and civilians.[2][5] Before the changes she discussed, families of soldiers hospitalized for psychiatric conditions received less support than families of physically wounded soldiers.[2][5] The committee also worked on mental-health assistance for survivors’ families, expanding rehabilitation spaces for people with post-traumatic stress, and improving support for the orphans and widows of security-force members.[2]

The scale of bereavement formed part of the context for this work: Defense Ministry statistics released in October counted more than 6,500 designated bereaved family members, including 1,973 parents, 351 widows, 885 children and 3,481 siblings.[2] Waldiger also emphasized the needs of reservists and their families, describing efforts to improve the salary base used to calculate financial benefits during service.[5] She argued that financial assistance needed to be accompanied by welfare and emotional support for families.[5]

In June 2026, the Knesset passed legislation Waldiger advanced as committee chair limiting lawyers’ fees for representing disabled veterans, security personnel and victims of hostile acts in claims against the Defense Ministry and National Insurance Institute.[11] The legislation combined a private proposal by MK Michael Biton with a government bill and passed its second and third readings by 14 votes to none.[11]

The law capped the fee for opening a case at NIS 2,000.[11] For claims resulting in a disability rating of at least 20 percent, it set a fee of NIS 16,000 for a 20 percent rating, plus NIS 800 for every additional percentage point.[11] Fees were to be paid over at least 60 monthly installments without interest or indexation, and the law permitted retroactive reimbursement of excess fees under agreements signed since October 7, 2023.[11]

In 2023, Waldiger’s expected participation in mental-health conferences drew professional criticism amid a dispute concerning a transgender pupil in Givat Shmuel.[12] Critics objected to her support for removing the pupil from school and alleged that she had participated in demonstrations, supported conversion therapy and backed removing gender-affirming treatments from the health basket.[12] Waldiger denied demonstrating against the child, said her words had been distorted and stated that she did not feel a need to apologize.[12]

A separate dispute concerned regulations implementing the Welfare Services for Persons with Disabilities Law.[13] Waldiger pressed for inclusion of people with both mental-health conditions and cognitive disabilities when the service concerned fell under the Welfare Ministry’s responsibility.[13] The ministry warned of resource diversion, citing an estimated 15,000 people and a possible additional cost of NIS 1 billion; Waldiger questioned those figures and opposed excluding people because they had more than one disability.[13] The ministry withdrew the regulations before the planned vote.[13]

On ultra-Orthodox military service, Waldiger opposed legislation that would not produce a genuine change in enlistment, while calling for social change alongside legislation and cautioning against needlessly antagonizing the Haredi community.[2] Her position placed her concern for soldiers, reservists and their families alongside her party’s coalition commitments.[2]

Waldiger supported renewing the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law’s temporary restrictions on automatic citizenship through marriage for Palestinians from the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza, presenting this as a security measure.[5] She has also called for replacing the Palestinian Authority, asserting that it funds and supports terrorists, and supported legislation removing teachers who support terrorism and barring university lecturers from expressing support for terrorism.[5]