Yosef Taieb

Taieb was born on 15 February 1981 in Paris, where he grew up until about age 15.[1] He immigrated to Israel in 1996 while in his teens and holds both French and Israeli nationalities.[2][1] After arriving in Israel, he studied at a Talmudic school and served in the Israeli military; Mako identifies his unit as the communications company of the Givati Brigade.[2][5]

Following his military service, Taieb became a rabbi and settled in Kiryat Ye'arim, a community near Jerusalem.[1] Before entering national politics, he served as deputy head of the Kiryat Ye'arim local council and managed projects promoting the integration of French immigrants at the Shalavim organization of the Wolfson Foundation.[1] He is married with six children.[1]

Taieb entered the Knesset in July 2020 under the Norwegian Law, a mechanism that allows ministers to resign their parliamentary seats so that the next candidates on their party lists can assume them.[2][3] A Times of Israel profile described him as the first Israeli member of parliament born in France.[2]

During his initial seven months in the Knesset, Taieb joined committees focused on child welfare, prevention of drug and alcohol use, education, and immigration and integration.[2] His work on the immigration and integration committee included issues specific to Jewish immigration from France, reflecting the constituency he had set out to represent.[2] He presented representing French Israelis as a central political mission, while his campaign team said he worked for recognition of immigrants' professional qualifications, reduced bureaucracy, and appropriate educational frameworks for young immigrants.[2] He also pressed the government to resume Paris–Tel Aviv flights during the COVID-19 lockdown.[2]

In February 2021, Taieb was placed tenth on the Shas candidate slate submitted to the Central Elections Committee ahead of the Knesset election.[6] He retained that position on the Shas list for the November 1, 2022 election to the 25th Knesset, in which Shas won 11 seats with 392,644 votes, or 8.24 percent of the total.[7] For the election scheduled for October 27, 2026, he was listed ninth on the Shas slate.[8]

Taieb served as chair of the Knesset Education Committee for most of the 25th Knesset term.[4] In that role, he engaged with a range of legislative and budgetary matters affecting Israeli education.

In March 2024, during a committee discussion on proposed academic accommodations for students serving in the reserves, Taieb called on university leaders to negotiate with the chief reserve officer to establish equitable arrangements. Pressure from Taieb and another committee member contributed to university heads agreeing to a minimum uniform package of exemptions and academic accommodations for student reservists.[9]

In July 2024, Taieb proposed legislation that would require Ministry of Education approval before an institution could transfer from a "recognized but unofficial" educational network into state education. The proposed bill included a special oversight committee, a requirement that applications be submitted at least a year in advance, a mandatory public hearing, and a five-year restriction on switching networks again. The proposal arose amid concern about schools transferring into state Haredi education; Taieb announced that he was withdrawing the bill until it could be discussed within the Shas faction.[10]

In August 2024, Taieb delayed committee approval of parent payment items, seeking greater state subsidies. The Education Ministry ultimately agreed to provide an additional NIS 5 million—approximately NIS 2 per parent or student—and Taieb accepted a compromise while continuing to demand more funding and a longer-term plan to reduce or eliminate the payments. Items he approved included food provision, the cultural basket, and parent organizations; school trips and end-of-year parties were excluded from the agreement. The National Parents' Leadership, which had initially supported his refusal to approve the payments, criticized the two-shekel compromise as insufficient.[11]

Taieb also advanced legislation commemorating the late Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The law, approved in January 2025, established an annual scholarly conference around the anniversary of Yosef's death, scholarships for research into his work and vision, support for public institutions commemorating him, a public council of eleven members, and a memorial center to be developed in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality. Taieb had sought a statutory commitment of at least NIS 10 million annually, but the Finance Ministry objected, and the final legislation set no fixed amount. NIS 9 million for the commemoration was nonetheless included in the ministry's 2026 budget proposal.[12]

In October 2025, Shas withdrew from its coalition positions after a draft-exemption bill for yeshiva students was not brought to a vote. Taieb and MK Yoni Mashriki submitted resignation letters from their respective Knesset committee chairmanships; Shas said it would return to government and Knesset positions once the status of yeshiva students was resolved.[13] A subsequent Ynet opinion piece characterized his departure from the Education Committee chair as having been forced.[4]

Taieb's political profile has combined advocacy for French immigrants with education policy. In his early Knesset work, he emphasized recognition of professional qualifications, reduced bureaucracy, and educational frameworks for immigrants from France.[2] As Education Committee chair, he helped press universities to adopt common accommodations for reservists and pursued additional state support to reduce parent payments.[9][11] He also advanced the law commemorating Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, linking his committee work to the institutional history of Shas.[12]

In January 2025, amid the broader political dispute over military conscription for Haredi yeshiva students, Taieb said in a Radio Kol Baramah interview that his son had received an IDF enlistment order and had asked him what to do. Taieb said he directed his son to seek guidance from his yeshiva head and Shas's Council of Torah Sages, adding that if his son were arrested, he would continue studying Torah in prison.[14] The following day, the advocacy group Mothers at the Front called for his removal as Education Committee chair, objecting to the suggestion that his son might not report for service.[14]

Also in January 2025, during a meeting with representatives of bereaved families and survivors of the October 7 attacks, Taieb said that if there were to be an inquiry, his personal position was that it should be a state commission of inquiry, while adding that his vote would follow the decision of Shas's Council of Torah Sages. Hours later, he and fellow Shas MK Yinon Azoulay issued a clarification stating that they had expressed the need to investigate the events but were leaving the decision about who would lead the inquiry to Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and the faction.[15]

In June 2023, Taieb entered a Knesset LGBTQ rights lobby meeting by mistake while searching for the Higher Education lobby meeting taking place nearby. He was greeted with applause by those assembled, declined an invitation to speak, and left after an aide informed him of the mix-up.[16] The Education Committee was separately discussing protections for LGBTQ children in schools that same day.[17]