Shimon Ben-Shlomo

Shimon Ben-Shlomo was born in 1942 in Yemen

Ben-Shlomo was born in Sharab, Yemen, in 1942 and came to Israel in 1949. His family first lived in a transit camp and later moved to Beersheba.

He attended a state religious school and then studied at yeshivas, including Mekor Haim in Jerusalem and a yeshiva in Hadera. He also attended a religious teachers seminary in Beit Shemesh. He then founded the Torah VeShalom association, which set up religious institutions across the country over 13 years.

In 1983 he moved to Jerusalem and became active in Shas. He was elected to the Knesset in 1984 and sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense and the Labor and Welfare committees. His statements about soldiers killed in Lebanon, a Reform congregation and Christians caused public controversy.

He clashed with his party after he was not named deputy minister, and in 1988 he left Shas to sit alone. In the 1988 elections he led a new party, Yishai, which won 2,947 votes and did not pass the threshold.

After leaving the Knesset he continued to head Torah VeShalom. In 1992 he was declared a hostile witness in the trial of former Knesset member Yair Levy. In 2003 he joined a hunger strike against budget cuts to religious institutions.