Avner Shaki

Avner Shaki was born in 1926 in Safed

Shaki was born in Safed in 1926 to Hana (Nazli) and Rabbi Ovadia Shaki. His sister Esther Shaki-Arazi was a poet. He studied at the Alliance school and later trained as a teacher in Jerusalem.

He worked as a teacher at an institution for young offenders in Acre and asked the welfare ministry to close it, which it did. He studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on a full scholarship and earned a master's degree in 1955, the same year he became a lawyer. He later earned a doctorate and became a law professor at Tel Aviv University.

In 1959 he founded the National Sephardic Party, which did not pass the electoral threshold. He later joined the National Religious Party and entered the Knesset in 1970, then served as Deputy Minister of Education and Culture. He was dismissed in 1972 after voting against the government's position on the Law of Return, and left the party in 1973.

He rejoined the party in 1984 and served in the Knesset until 1999. He was minister without portfolio in Yitzhak Shamir's government and Minister of Religious Affairs from 1990 to 1992. After losing the 1998 party leadership contest to Rabbi Yitzhak Levi, he became an associate president of the World Mizrachi Movement.

Shaki died in 2005 after a severe illness. In 2021 a street in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood was named after him.