12 Facts About Yitzhak Levy

Yitzhak Levy is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the National Religious Party and the Ahi faction of the National Union between 1988 and 2009.

Yitzhak Levy was born in Casablanca in Morocco in 1947, the son of Daniel-Yitzhak Levy, who later served as a member of the Knesset for the National Religious Party.

Yitzhak Levy studied at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh and Yeshivat Hakotel.

Yitzhak Levy served as an officer in the IDF, achieving the rank of major.

Yitzhak Levy was a member of the Bnei Akiva Executive and World Secretariat, and Secretary-General of the National Religious Movement from 1986 to 1995.

Yitzhak Levy was the Rabbi of the Bnei Akiva Talmudic College in Kfar Maimon, and was among the initiators of the establishment of the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, and one of the founders of the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh in the West Bank.

Yitzhak Levy was elected to the Knesset in 1988 on the National Religious Party list.

Yitzhak Levy was a member of the House Committee from 1988 to 1996, and the Labor and Social Welfare Committee from 1988 to 1992.

Yitzhak Levy was chairman the Ethics Committee and the children welfare lobby, as well as the Israel-Argentina Parliamentary Friendship League.

Yitzhak Levy served as Minister of Religious Affairs, a position he held in rotation.

On November 2,2000, his 28-year-old daughter, Ayelet Hashahar Yitzhak Levy, was killed by a Palestinian car bomb in Jerusalem.

In December 2008, Yitzhak Levy announced that he was retiring from politics, stating that the decision was made due to the new Jewish Home party not holding traditional primary elections, but instead relying on an internet-based vote.