Aryeh Dery

Aryeh Dery was born in 1959 in Meknes

Deri was born in Meknes, Morocco, in 1959 to Esther and Eliyahu Deri. His father ran a tailoring business. In 1968 the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Bat Yam.

He studied at a Haredi school with a boarding house in Hadera. In 1973 he moved to Porat Yosef yeshiva in Jerusalem, and in 1976 to Hebron Yeshiva. He later served as secretary of Ma'ale Amos and in 1983 became administrative manager of Lev Banim Yeshiva.

In 1984 he became secretary of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, and in 1985 Secretary General of Shas. In December 1988 he was sworn in as Minister of the Interior in Yitzhak Shamir's government. He kept the post under Yitzhak Rabin and entered the Knesset in 1992, then left the cabinet in 1993.

In 1999 he was convicted of bribery, fraud and breach of trust and sentenced to 3 years in prison. He was released in 2002. He returned to lead Shas and was elected to the Knesset in 2013, later serving as Minister of the Economy and again as Minister of the Interior.

In January 2022 he resigned from the Knesset under a plea deal for tax offenses. He returned after the 2022 election and became Vice Prime Minister, but in January 2023 the Supreme Court ruled he could not serve as a minister, and he was dismissed. He is married to Yaffa Cohen and lives in Jerusalem.