Shas MK Yaakov Margi announced that he will not stand in Israel’s upcoming elections and will leave the Knesset at the end of the current term, ending a 23-year parliamentary career and marking the second resignation from the Sephardic Chareidi party’s slate in a single week.

According to Hebrew media reports citing Margi’s statement, the longtime lawmaker recently informed Shas chairman Aryeh Deri that he did not want a place on the party’s next Knesset list. Deri asked him to hold off, the statement said, but Margi made the announcement public anyway.

He did not provide a reason for the decision. Margi made a point of emphasizing that he is not leaving the Shas movement, calling the party “my home” and pledging to take on whatever role the leadership assigns him.

The announcement comes one week after Shas MK and former interior minister Moshe Arbel submitted his formal resignation to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. Arbel cited personal reasons in his resignation letter, telling associates he wanted to spend time with his family, learn Torah and complete a doctorate at Reichman University. He also issued a public plea against political division and “gratuitous hatred,” language Israeli commentators read as a parting message to the broader political class.

Margi, 64, was born in Rabat, Morocco, and brought to Israel as an infant during Operation Yachin in 1962. He served as chairman of the religious council in Be’er Sheva from 1993 to 2003 and as director-general of Shas beginning in 2001, before winning a Knesset seat in the 2003 election. He has been re-elected continuously since.

He served as minister of religious services from 2009 to 2013 under Prime Minister Netanyahu and was appointed welfare minister in 2022. He held that portfolio until last summer, when Shas pulled its ministers from the government in protest over the failure to pass a draft exemption law for bnei yeshiva. The party further escalated its rupture with the coalition in October 2025, resigning from all Knesset chairmanships at the direction of the Moetzes Chachmei Hatorah, though it has continued to support the government in critical votes.

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