Moshe Arbel

Arbel grew up in Petah Tikva. His father, Rahamim Arbel, was an active local Shas figure who held municipal and religious-council roles.[6] Arbel studied in haredi educational institutions, including Sha'arit Yisrael Talmud Torah and Nahlat David yeshiva, and spent years studying Torah before pursuing higher education.[1][2] He was ordained as a rabbi; profiles also describe him as a mohel and as a community rabbi in Petah Tikva.[6][7]

He studied law at Ono Academic College, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and later began a doctorate in law at Reichman University. A profile also reported that he received a business administration certificate from Harvard University. Arbel completed high-school matriculation examinations alongside his later studies.[2][7]

Arbel served in an Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command unit responsible for identifying corpses and later worked as a military prosecutor in the reserves.[2][7] He is married to Keren and lives in Petah Tikva.[7]

Before entering the Knesset, Arbel held legal and political posts associated with Shas. He served as legal adviser to the party and its Knesset faction, advised MK Yoav Ben-Tzur on legislation, and worked as chief of staff to Shas leader Arye Deri.[6] He also served as a legal adviser to the Interior Ministry and temporarily headed the Ministry of Religious Services.[8][1]

Arbel was elected to the Knesset in 2019. He served on the Central Elections Committee and as its deputy chair, and worked on detainees’ rights. With MK Gaby Lasky, he initiated a bill requiring judges to be informed when detainees brought before them were shackled, to support review of whether restraints were necessary.[6] Shas placed him seventh on its list for the 2020 election, sixth for the 2021 election, and sixth on its 2022 candidate list.[9][10][11]

In April 2023, after the Supreme Court ruling that led to Deri’s departure from the health and interior portfolios, Arbel was confirmed as minister of both. He had previously served as deputy minister in each ministry. The Knesset approved the appointments by 33 votes to 12; Shas described them as temporary, pending Deri’s possible return.[12][13] Arbel’s appointment was part of a broader political dispute over Deri’s ministerial role and the party’s efforts to facilitate his return.[13]

In October 2023, Arbel asked for someone else to take over the health portfolio, citing the workload created by the war with Hamas. Shas leader Deri appointed Uriel Busso as health minister, while Arbel continued to lead the Interior Ministry.[14]

Arbel described the Interior Ministry’s responsibilities as encompassing local authorities, immigration and citizenship, and urban planning and development. He said the ministry oversaw more than 250 local authorities and argued that financially sound municipalities should have greater independence, while authorities with serious management problems might require an appointed accountant and closer financial supervision.[2][7]

After the October 7, 2023 attack, the ministry arranged mobile emergency offices at hotels for evacuees who lacked passports or identity documents. Arbel also described temporary measures intended to speed construction of schools and medical centers. A pilot allowing people to order replacement documents online was planned for late April 2024, after some traumatized survivors had found it difficult to leave their hotel rooms to meet the mobile offices.[2]

Arbel emphasized services to Arab municipalities. In 2023, when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich withheld NIS 200 million over concerns that funds might reach criminal organizations, Arbel confronted him and succeeded in securing the transfer, according to a 2024 profile. Arbel cited the election of a young engineer unaffiliated with large families as mayor of Jatt as an example of residents choosing local governance focused on everyday needs.[2]

In the aftermath of the October 7 attack, Arbel praised Arab citizens, noting that Arabs were among the victims and among the first responders and medical workers. He also supported calls from contractors’ and industrialists’ associations to allow Arab workers to return to work. When local authority leaders sought to bar Arab workers from construction sites, he reproached them and wrote that authorities were obligated to treat Jewish and Arab citizens with respect and equality. He stated: “Local authorities are obligated to act with respect and equality toward all citizens of Israel – Jews and Arabs alike.”[15]

Arbel also addressed the practical and financial pressures on municipal government. He defended increases in property taxes as a means for local authorities to meet obligations imposed by the state, including higher public-sector labor costs, arguing that raising taxes was preferable to running deficits. In March 2025 he said local-authority taxes had risen by 5.29% that year to support municipal stability and lessen dependence on central government.[7][16]

The ministry also worked to improve access to identity documents and passports. Arbel said more than 100,000 people had ordered identity cards online and received them at home.[16] Earlier in his term, passport-service marathons issued more than 400,000 passports over a month and a half in summer 2023.[7] By March 2025, the waiting queue had partly returned.[16]

After serving as interior minister, Arbel remained a Knesset member until 2026.[5] In May 2026, he submitted his resignation to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and announced his retirement from politics. The resignation was to take effect at the end of the Knesset session, with Erez Malul expected to replace him.[17][5] Arbel said he wanted to spend time with his family, study Torah, and complete his doctorate at Reichman University.[5]

On the day he announced his Knesset resignation, Arbel was appointed chair of Mehadrin, a publicly traded agricultural and real-estate company controlled by Yitzhak Tshuva’s Delek Group. He joined its board, and the appointment was reported to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Arbel described the move as a new chapter after years of public service.[4]

Arbel developed a public profile as an atypical haredi politician, combining rabbinic credentials with legal education and military service. A 2023 “Unifier Index” survey identified him as the most popular haredi politician among its respondents and gave him high ratings from ultra-Orthodox and coalition voters. The Jerusalem Post attributed his appeal in the survey to moderate, non-aggressive language.[1]

Arbel framed public office as a form of service rather than personal possession. He said: “The State of Israel needs people who enter public roles with modesty and with the understanding that they have not conquered territory but are there to serve the public.”[2]

His public record also included asking to relinquish the health portfolio during wartime because of the workload and repeatedly supporting military or national service for haredi men who were not engaged in full-time Torah study.[14][3]

Arbel’s calls for haredi military service became a prominent point of difference between his public statements and Shas’s established position. In April 2024, he said there was “no moral option” to continue a blanket exemption for haredi men who were not studying Torah, and estimated that 1,500 men in each haredi age group could be drafted immediately. He argued that those for whom Torah was not their vocation should serve.[3]

At a policy conference in July 2024, Arbel said that a black kippah did not exempt a person from military service and called for every eligible person to be drafted.[8] He also said that Israeli society had spiritual as well as economic value and that haredi perspectives—including the importance of Torah scholars and segregated academic settings—should be considered.[8] Shas responded to his earlier remarks by saying that conscription and the status of yeshiva students were matters for its Council of Torah Sages and party leadership, rather than individual representatives.[3]

Arbel returned to the issue in February 2025, saying that it was possible and necessary to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and remain haredi. His statements differed from his party’s position and renewed the debate over how to reconcile military manpower needs with Torah study. In a 2024 interview, he also described the country as being in a severe crisis, saying that a Supreme Court interim order affecting state support for Torah students had produced a sense of threat and backlash. He acknowledged that the government and Shas might bear some responsibility, arguing that their hesitation and failure to decide may have contributed to the situation. He called for a solution that recognized both the need for the IDF to be “the people’s army” and the value of Torah study.[18][7]

Arbel was also involved in a 2021 dispute over the Evyatar outpost in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. The Times of Israel reported that he helped bring building materials to the outpost in violation of a military order. Arbel defended his actions by saying he considered the order selectively enforced against Jews and illegitimate, and said he had used parliamentary immunity to help form the settlement. The outpost’s status and the legality of the construction were politically contested.[19]

In April 2023, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef urged Arbel to condition municipal funding on the construction of synagogues and yeshivas, while acknowledging that such a condition would be illegal. The report said Arbel smiled at the remarks and recorded criticism from opposition politicians and a complaint against Yosef; it did not report that Arbel implemented the suggestion.[20]

A further dispute concerned visa procedures for Christian organizations and workers. In a letter dated July 16, 2025, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said he had met Arbel at his office about the issue and left believing it had been resolved, but later concluded that the situation had worsened. The letter stated: “The United States and evangelical Christian organizations are your friends. We feel we are being treated as adversaries.”[21]

Huckabee alleged that, beginning in early 2025, the Interior Ministry’s Visa Department stopped following the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ recommendations for Evangelical organizations and began investigating their eligibility as religious institutions. He wrote that organizations had been asked about their beliefs, activities, and assets, and that, to his knowledge, none had received new A3 clergy visas since the start of the year. The organizations named in the account included the Baptist Convention of Israel, the Christian Missionary Alliance, and the Assemblies of God; some, it said, had operated in Israel since before 1948. These claims were presented as Huckabee’s account, and the material available here does not include an Israeli government response.[21]

In January 2025, Arbel was also reported to have said that Abdelaziz Kaddi, who carried out a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, had been flagged as a threat on arriving at Ben Gurion Airport and referred for further security screening. The screening did not identify factors that would have prevented Kaddi’s entry, and the Shin Bet was investigating why he was allowed into Israel despite the flag.[22]