Ya'akov Asher

Ya'akov Asher was born on July 2, 1965, in Ramat Gan, the son of Aharon and Tova Asher.[1] He pursued a yeshiva education, studying at Mishkan Yaakov Yeshiva in Haifa, Grodno Yeshiva in Ashdod, and later at Beit Yehuda kollel in Bnei Brak.[1] He completed abbreviated military service through the IDF's Shlav Bet program, serving for several months.[1][7]

Asher subsequently settled in Bnei Brak, where he married Miriam; the couple have seven children.[1][7]

Asher's entry into public life came around 1990, when he joined the Bnei Brak municipality as an aide to Deputy Mayor Eliyahu Suissa.[1] He progressed through a series of administrative roles — managing Mayor Yerachmiel Boyer's office, assisting the municipal director-general, and heading the education department, eventually serving as acting director-general of the municipality.[1][4]

In 2000, he led a UTJ-affiliated list in Elad's inaugural municipal election.[1] He narrowly lost the mayoral race to Shas candidate Tzuriel Krispel, then joined the municipal council and served as deputy council head.[1] Three years later, Asher was elected to Bnei Brak's city council and became deputy mayor, with responsibility for the engineering department.[1]

In 2008, Degel HaTorah selected him as its mayoral candidate under a rotation arrangement with Agudat Yisrael.[1] Ahead of the election, his slate united Degel HaTorah, Agudat Yisrael, Shas, and the National Religious Party behind a shared list; with all major parties in agreement, no contest took place, and Asher was elected unopposed.[4] He was reported to be the first — and at the time the only — Bnei Brak mayor to take office without a mayoral or city-council election.[4] He served as mayor until 2013 and also held roles as vice chairman of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel and on regional planning bodies.[1]

Early in his mayoralty, Asher proposed a municipal economic-recovery plan that was approved unanimously by Bnei Brak's city council.[8] Under the plan, the municipality committed to balancing its annual operating budget while government ministries addressed the accumulated deficit; an initial grant of 10 million shekels and a 35 million-shekel bank loan were secured, with further grants and loans tied to performance milestones.[8]

Asher stood seventh on United Torah Judaism's list in the January 2013 general election.[1] The alliance won seven seats in the 19th Knesset, bringing him into parliament; he left the Bnei Brak mayoralty and entered the Knesset in February 2013.[1][4]

In the 2015 election he was again seventh on the UTJ list, but the party won only six seats, leaving him outside the Knesset.[1] That March he became Degel HaTorah's secretary-general.[1] His return to parliament came on May 24, 2016, when Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush resigned his Knesset seat under the Norwegian Law.[1][9] The legislation, passed in 2015, allowed ministers and deputy ministers to vacate their seats for the next candidate on their party list while retaining the possibility of returning to the Knesset if they left the cabinet.[9] The move followed months of tension between UTJ's Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah factions over the allocation of Knesset seats and positions.[9] Asher subsequently served continuously through the 25th Knesset.[1]

In May 2020, Asher became chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which handled legislation and emergency regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] In September 2020, the committee approved the government's "traffic light" plan for managing COVID-19 restrictions by locality, but shortened the regulations' validity to one week to allow the government time to address committee demands, including changes to how locality risk levels were calculated and to certain business-capacity rules.[10] He later served as a deputy Knesset speaker.[1]

After the 2022 election, Asher chaired the Interior and Environmental Protection Committee, whose remit covered municipal administration, planning, housing, immigration, and environmental policy.[1][11] In 2024, while chairing that committee, he oversaw work on amendments to the Metro Law; the Knesset subsequently passed those amendments in their second and third readings.[12] In a 2024 interview, he described the Tel Aviv-area metro as essential for transportation and urban and business development, linking his support to his experience as Bnei Brak mayor and warning that delays would impose substantial economic costs.[12] His committee also advanced green licensing and license-plate requirements for two-wheeled vehicles, examples he cited of work beyond sector-specific issues.[12]

In July 2025, Asher resigned as committee chairman after UTJ withdrew from coalition positions over the unresolved status of military-service exemptions for yeshiva students. He subsequently represented UTJ on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and participated in negotiations over conscription legislation.[1]

Among his earlier legislative work, Asher sponsored bills extending maternity leave when a premature or hospitalized newborn is involved.[13][14] A 2013 Knesset plenary record identifies him, Moshe Gafni, and Uri Maklev as co-sponsors of a proposed amendment to the Women's Employment Law providing up to ten additional weeks of maternity leave beyond the ordinary entitlement when a newborn is hospitalized.[13] A separate bill he introduced the same year aimed to allow a mother whose premature infant was hospitalized to take her maternity leave after the baby returned home, rather than having the hospitalization period count against it.[14]

Asher co-sponsored Basic Law: Torah Study alongside Moshe Gafni; the proposal arose from agreements forming Benjamin Netanyahu's government in December 2022.[3] The law declares that "Torah study is a foundational value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel."[3] It passed its preliminary reading on June 10, 2026 by 56 votes to 43, its first reading on July 1 by 63 to 53, and its final readings on July 13 by 63 to 52.[3] The enacted law contains no enforcement mechanism, funding provision, definition of Torah study, or explicit exemption from military service.[3]

United Torah Judaism is an alliance formed in 1992 between Agudat Israel, associated mainly with the Hasidic Haredi faction, and Degel HaTorah, which represents the Lithuanian Haredi faction.[5][15] Leadership of the alliance rotates between the two components.[16]

In September 2026, after the failure to pass legislation exempting Haredi men from military service, Degel HaTorah's rabbinical leadership dropped Moshe Gafni and Uri Maklev from its election slate and selected Asher to head the party's parliamentary list; Gafni remained chairman of Degel HaTorah's national movement.[1][16] Because it was Degel HaTorah's turn to lead the joint ticket, Asher became chairman of UTJ and took first place on its slate for the October 27 election to the 26th Knesset.[6][16]

Reporting described Asher as a close and loyal ally within the circle of Rabbi Dov Landau and noted that he had regularly visited leading rabbis, including the late Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman.[16] The Center for Israel Education describes UTJ as a leading party for Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, with stated priorities that include government support for its community and expanding the role of Jewish law in Israeli society.[5]

Several of Asher's most prominent positions sit at the center of contested public debates in Israel. His strong backing for military-service exemptions for yeshiva students became a defining issue of the 2025 coalition crisis.[17] In July 2025, following an instruction from the Council of Torah Sages — a rabbinical policymaking body — Degel HaTorah resigned its coalition positions after the government failed to present a draft-exemption law.[18] Asher resigned as chair of the Interior and Environmental Protection Committee; Gafni and Maklev also left government or leadership positions.[18] The dispute unfolded against a backdrop of public opposition to Haredi exemptions and a Supreme Court ruling requiring the state to begin drafting Haredi men after a previous exemption law expired in 2023.[18]

Asher himself served briefly in the IDF through Stage B before later becoming a leading figure behind legislation to freeze arrests of young Haredi men who had not reported for military service.[17] At a 2026 conference, he argued that a law affecting "a million and a half people" could not be passed without agreement and dialogue.[19] In a 2024 interview, he described himself as a "shofar" for the Torah sages rather than an independent political actor, and expressed opposition to compulsory core-curriculum studies in Haredi institutions and to compelling Torah students to enter the workforce — while also stating that the state should create employment alternatives for people who reach adulthood without matriculation qualifications.[12]

In 2019, Asher stated that UTJ would make limiting the High Court of Justice's power to strike down legislation a condition for joining a coalition, describing such a measure as "imperative" and linking it directly to court review of Haredi military-service legislation.[20] He has also expressed opposition to public transportation on Shabbat and support for restrictions on construction and commerce on that day, framing these positions as protecting the Jewish character of the state.[20] These stances rest on clearly stated religious and communal grounds but remain subjects of significant political debate.