Ze'ev Elkin

Elkin was born Vladimir Borisovich Elkin on April 3, 1971, in Kharkiv, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, into a secular Jewish family.[1][2] He developed an interest in Judaism while young and began learning Hebrew independently.[1] Recalling his adolescence, he said that he studied secretly with prohibited textbooks and that people could face imprisonment for learning or teaching Hebrew in the mid-1980s.[11] By his account, he was teaching Hebrew himself at the age of 17, helped establish an organization for Hebrew teachers and a local Bnei Akiva youth unit, and worked to make the city's synagogue a center of religious Zionist activity.[11]

At 18, Elkin established an organization of Hebrew and history teachers in Kharkiv; the number of Hebrew learners in the city reportedly grew from 30 to 3,000 before the large wave of emigration from the Soviet Union.[3] In 1990, he served as deputy head of Kharkiv's Jewish community and secretary-general of Bnei Akiva in the Soviet Union.[4] He immigrated to Israel in December that year with his first wife.[1] He later recalled arriving shortly before the Gulf War, aged 19 and a half, while his wife was pregnant and the rest of his family remained in the Soviet Union.[12] In that account, he said the couple had been allowed to take only $150 out of the country.[12]

After immigrating, Elkin studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion until 1995 and worked in the immigration department of the Jewish organization Gesher.[6] Although he had studied mathematics in the Soviet Union, he recalled that his first professional work in Israel was in a chicken coop because its working hours suited his circumstances.[12] His education included a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Kharkiv University and a master's degree in Jewish history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[4] Before entering the Knesset, he undertook advanced doctoral research in Jerusalem on Jews in the lands of Islam during the Middle Ages.[4]

From 1996 to 2006, Elkin taught in the Hebrew University's departments of Jewish history and history and established the Chase Center for the Study of Jewish Studies in Russian.[6] His academic interests included medieval Jewish studies and Saadia Gaon, alongside involvement in Jewish education in former Soviet countries.[2] In the late 1990s, he became an adviser on Russian-language Jewish education to the director-general of the Jewish Agency's education department.[6] At the time of his entry into national politics in 2006, he was a Hebrew University lecturer and had given up a postdoctoral position in the United States to pursue a political career.[11]

Elkin entered the Knesset in 2006 as a member of Kadima, ranked seventeenth on its electoral list and identified at the time as the new centrist party's highest-ranking religious Knesset member.[11] He said he saw his role as helping Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert maintain ties with the religious Zionist movement while carrying out further territorial withdrawals.[11] In the seventeenth Knesset, he served on committees dealing with finance, education, the constitution, immigration and absorption, and diaspora affairs.[4] He also chaired a subcommittee concerned with the absorption of immigrant children and youth.[2]

In November 2008, Elkin left Kadima and joined Likud, explaining that he believed Kadima had become a left-wing party.[2] His departure followed Tzipi Livni's accession to Kadima's leadership.[13] He took twentieth place on Likud's list for the 2009 election and retained his Knesset seat when the party won 27 mandates.[2] Following that election, he became Likud faction chairman and coalition chairman, as well as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee's subcommittee on Judea and Samaria.[6] His parliamentary caucus chairmanships included Eretz Israel, Jerusalem, higher education, and evacuees from Gush Katif.[4]

Coalition management became a prominent part of Elkin's parliamentary work: during four years as coalition chairman, the coalition did not lose a vote in the Knesset plenum.[13] He also became a prominent coalition negotiator and a close Likud ally of Benjamin Netanyahu.[13] After reelection in 2013, he served as deputy foreign minister and subsequently became chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[2] He also served as acting foreign minister and resumed the coalition chairmanship in October 2014.[1][14] His legislative activity included initiating the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.[14]

In November 2014, after an attack on a synagogue in west Jerusalem killed five Israelis, Elkin contacted the leaders of Labor, Meretz, Shas, Kadima, and United Torah Judaism to invite them into a national emergency government.[15] Then serving as coalition chairman, he offered each party a cabinet position as a minister without portfolio to facilitate temporary cooperation on security.[15] Labor leader Isaac Herzog rejected the offer.[15]

Elkin placed eighth on Likud's list for the 2015 election and returned to the Knesset after the party won 30 seats.[2] He was appointed minister of immigrant absorption and minister of strategic affairs, but relinquished the latter portfolio after 11 days when Netanyahu assigned Gilad Erdan a group of ministerial responsibilities that included strategic affairs.[2] Elkin then sought and received the Jerusalem affairs portfolio.[2] A 2015 ministerial listing recorded that he had already served three previous Knesset terms and that he and Yuval Steinitz were reportedly to rotate within the security cabinet.[16]

On May 30, 2016, Elkin transferred the immigrant absorption portfolio to Sofa Landver, and on August 1 he became minister of environmental protection, succeeding Avi Gabbay.[2] He held the environmental protection portfolio until May 2020.[1] Alongside his ministerial and parliamentary responsibilities, he served as acting deputy prime minister when Netanyahu was abroad.[13]

As Jerusalem affairs minister, Elkin was responsible for government plans and programs involving East Jerusalem, including the 2018–2023 five-year plan.[17] The program allocated approximately NIS 2 billion over five years to infrastructure, education, welfare, employment, services, health care, land registration, and zoning.[17] Elkin believed that reducing socioeconomic gaps between East and West Jerusalem could help reduce security disruptions and hostile activity.[17] Speaking at a Jerusalem policy conference on December 12, 2018, he addressed mistakes that had led to the neglect of East Jerusalem.[18]

Elkin announced his candidacy for mayor of Jerusalem in May 2018.[1] He said he could contribute more to the city as mayor and moved from Kfar Eldad to Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood for the campaign.[13] His platform emphasized lowering housing costs for young couples and increasing municipal revenue by attracting businesses.[13] He argued that housing costs and the departure of Jewish residents were changing the city's population balance, and proposed a substantial increase in housing construction.[13] Citing what he described as an annual municipal budget shortfall of NIS 150 million, he sought a one-time government investment to develop business hubs.[13] Despite endorsements from Netanyahu and outgoing mayor Nir Barkat, he finished third, receiving 19.8 percent of the vote.[19]

Elkin was reelected to the Knesset in April 2019, September 2019, and March 2020.[2] In May 2020, he was appointed to the newly created ministerial posts of higher education and water resources.[2] On December 23 that year, he left Likud for Gideon Sa'ar's political camp.[7] He resigned from the government and Knesset and joined Sa'ar's New Hope party.[20] He appeared third on New Hope's 2021 electoral slate, behind Sa'ar and Yifat Shasha-Biton.[8]

In the government formed on June 13, 2021, Elkin held the construction and housing and Jerusalem affairs and heritage portfolios.[21] He was also listed as a minister in the Prime Minister's Office and liaison between the government and Knesset.[21] As housing minister, he introduced the discounted-housing program known as Target Price.[22] The thirty-sixth government's term ran until December 28, 2022.[21]

Elkin's Russian-language skills also gave him a role in high-level diplomacy.[5][20] He had translated for Netanyahu in dealings with Vladimir Putin, and on October 22, 2021, accompanied Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to a meeting with the Russian president as both translator and adviser.[5][20] Afterward, Elkin said the talks addressed continuity in Israel–Russia relations following Bennett's replacement of Netanyahu as prime minister.[5] He also stated that the two countries would maintain their existing policies regarding Israeli airstrikes in Syria.[5]

In November 2024, Elkin returned to government as a minister within the Finance Ministry, responsible for directorates overseeing recovery in northern and southern Israel.[2] His appointment followed a November 5 coalition agreement between Netanyahu and Sa'ar, then chairman of United Right.[2] Elkin was also to join the team deciding on the postwar 'day after' in Gaza.[2] In December 2025, the government decided to combine the northern and southern recovery directorates under former Housing Ministry director-general Aviad Friedman, with Elkin remaining the minister responsible for them.[10]

In June 2026, the government approved a NIS 5.6 billion rehabilitation and growth plan for northern border communities, bringing reported investment planned for the north over the coming years to NIS 13.1 billion.[23] Covering communities within nine kilometers of the Lebanon border, the plan set goals of adding 100,000 residents by 2036 and marketing approximately 24,000 new homes by 2030.[23] Elkin, responsible for the Tnufa directorate, chaired the steering committee overseeing implementation and progress toward the growth targets.[23]

Before the October 2026 election, Elkin returned to Likud and placed seventeenth in its nationwide primaries.[9] The allocation of party-list positions and reserved slots put him thirty-second on the final electoral slate, too low to secure a seat in the twenty-sixth Knesset.[9] The published Likud election list likewise placed him at number 32.[24]

Elkin's public career has connected Soviet Jewish communal education with Israeli parliamentary leadership: before immigration he organized Hebrew teaching and Bnei Akiva activity, and after immigration he worked in Russian-language Jewish education before entering the Knesset.[11][6] His subsequent responsibilities included both immigrant absorption and government programs for Jerusalem, linking the integration of immigrants with the administration and development of the capital.[2][17] Within parliamentary politics, his record included faction leadership, coalition negotiation, committee chairmanships, and four years as coalition chairman without a coalition defeat in a plenary vote.[13]

On territorial questions, Elkin opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[25] At a symposium addressing the territory's future, he argued that demographic challenges had changed right-wing policy and that claims to rights in the historic Land of Israel conflicted with full Palestinian rights in the territory.[26] Summarizing his own approach, he said: “We are in a conflict of rights, and I want to win.”[26] His educational positions also included support for making Arabic a required subject alongside Hebrew and English in state schools and for teaching historical connections between Jews and Arabs and between Judaism and Islam.[25]

At a 2016 conference on the period after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Elkin urged Israel to prepare for prolonged instability rather than assume an orderly succession or new elections.[27] He pointed to competing centers of power within Fatah, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority bureaucracy, security organizations, militias, gangs, and clans, warning that they could enter open conflict.[27] He argued that Israel would still need to secure borders, protect Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria, manage water and other infrastructure, and respond to Palestinian diplomatic initiatives.[27] His proposed 'paradigm change' involved greater Israeli intervention in administering the territories.[27]

Elkin also argued that Israel had made a serious mistake by ignoring what he described as Palestinian Authority education toward hatred of Israel.[27] He regarded such education as a source of terrorism and an obstacle to practical compromises for peace.[27] These statements formed part of his policy outlook and forecasts about future Palestinian politics, rather than a description of later developments.[27]

His approach to Jerusalem combined an emphasis on the city's Jewish population with municipal development, construction, and narrowing socioeconomic gaps.[13][17] The East Jerusalem five-year plan covered education, employment, public services, and infrastructure, while his mayoral platform sought more housing and business investment.[13][17] His later recovery responsibilities extended to a northern growth program with explicit population and housing targets, placing long-term community development alongside the immediate rehabilitation work of the recovery directorates.[23]

An anti-boycott bill sponsored by Elkin passed its first Knesset reading on March 8, 2011, by 32 votes to 12.[28] It proposed sanctions against bodies advocating boycotts of Israel or areas such as the West Bank.[28] A coalition of 53 human-rights organizations urged the Knesset speaker to halt it, arguing that its definition of boycott was vague and could restrict freedom of expression.[28] The sponsors agreed to a revised definition, and the bill returned to committee for preparation for further readings.[28]

Jerusalem policy also generated disputes.[17] The 2018–2023 East Jerusalem plan excluded eight neighborhoods in the Kafr Aqab area and Shuafat refugee camp, despite their remaining officially within Jerusalem.[17] Those areas were estimated to contain approximately 140,000 people, or roughly 40 percent of the city's Palestinian residents.[17] Its political implications included advancing Israel's status in the city; its Israelization-related elements and exclusion of neighborhoods beyond the security barrier were sources of anticipated opposition.[17] A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs commentary records Elkin's July 2016 argument that planning should advance for both Arab and Jewish construction near Beit Safafa and Givat Hamatos, and his description of building at Givat Hamatos as “a strategic aspect of the struggle for the future of Jerusalem.”[29]

Elkin's break with Netanyahu in December 2020 involved a public exchange of accusations.[20] Elkin accused him of placing personal interests before national interests and of having “destroyed” Likud's internal democracy.[20] Netanyahu called Elkin a liar and denied seeking immunity legislation; Likud attributed the departure to Elkin's concerns about his slate position and desired job.[20] During the 2021 coalition negotiations, Elkin and Sa'ar expressed concern that Netanyahu would continue denigrating judicial and law-enforcement institutions to delegitimize his court case.[30]

In 2021, Elkin and Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana objected to a proposed authority governing the planned egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall that would include Reform and Conservative representatives.[31] They suggested retaining administration under the Prime Minister's Office or placing it under Jewish Agency supervision.[31] No government action to advance the proposed changes had occurred by the end of that year.[31]

The northern recovery arrangements were also affected by delays and disputes over ministerial responsibilities.[23] Attacks in the north began on October 8, 2023, and a recovery task force and NIS 15 billion budget framework were approved in May 2024, but the decision to place Tnufa under the southern Tekuma directorate's leadership and establish a shared staff did not come until December 2025.[23] Overlapping responsibilities and political disagreements among ministries contributed to delays in creating the directorate and preparing a comprehensive long-term plan.[23]