17 Facts About Shlomo Benizri

Shlomo Benizri is an Israeli politician and member of the Shas party.

Shlomo Benizri represented Shas in the Knesset between 1992 and 2008, serving as Deputy Health Minister, Minister of Health, and Labor and Social Welfare Minister during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Shlomo Benizri was later convicted for accepting bribes, breach of trust, conspiring to commit a crime, and obstruction of justice, and served a prison sentence.

Shlomo Benizri was one of eight children born to Maimon and Aliza Benizri.

Shlomo Benizri did military service in the Israel Defense Forces and participated in the 1982 Lebanon War.

Shlomo Benizri then studied for ten years at Yeshivat Or HaChaim, a yeshiva in Jerusalem, and was ordained as a rabbi.

Shlomo Benizri went on to teach at the yeshiva and serve as its spiritual director.

Shlomo Benizri was first elected to the Knesset in 1992 on Shas' list, and served as the party's parliamentary group chairman during his first term.

Shlomo Benizri was re-elected in 1996, and was appointed Deputy Minister of Health in Binyamin Netanyahu's government.

Shlomo Benizri was re-elected again in 1999 after being placed fifth on the Shas list, and was appointed Minister of Health in Ehud Barak's government, serving in the cabinet until Shas left the government on 11 July 2000.

Shlomo Benizri returned to the cabinet after Ariel Sharon formed a new government in 2001 as Labor and Social Welfare Minister, serving until the 2003 elections.

The decision to indict Shlomo Benizri after the elections was a conscious decision on the part of the Israeli attorney general Menachem Mazuz.

On 1 April 2008, Shlomo Benizri was convicted of accepting bribes, breach of faith, obstructing justice, and conspiracy to commit a crime for accepting favors worth millions of shekels from his friend, contractor Moshe Sela, in exchange for inside information regarding foreign workers scheduled to arrive in Israel.

Shlomo Benizri began serving his sentence on September 1,2009, in the religious division of Maasiyahu prison in Ramle.

On March 1,2012, Shlomo Benizri was released early; he was one of 600 other prisoners whose sentences were commuted to ease overcrowding in Israeli prisons.

In 1998, Shlomo Benizri called for Dana International to be disqualified from the Eurovision Song Contest, which she went on to win.

In 2008, Shlomo Benizri blamed several earthquakes in the region on Israel's tolerance of homosexuality.