Shmuel Halpert

Shmuel Halpert was born in 1939 in Cluj-Napoca

Shmuel Halpert was born in Cluj, Romania, in 1939. His father, Rabbi Leibush Ber, was the rabbi of Vaslui. He is a grandson of Rabbi Mordechai of Nadvirna and belongs to the Vizhnitz Hasidic movement.

He studied at the Vizhnitz yeshiva, where he was ordained as a rabbi. He immigrated to Israel in 1960, and his family settled in Tel Aviv. As an educator, he ran the Torah VeMelacha technological schools.

He was first elected to the Knesset in 1981 and lost his seat in 1984. He returned in 1988 and served as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Office and then in the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. Under a rotation agreement he left the Knesset in 1994, then served full terms from 1996 to 2003, including as a deputy speaker.

In 2005 he returned to the Knesset in another rotation and became Deputy Minister of Transportation. He worked to raise child allowances, and a law known as the Halpert Law was passed in November 2000 and canceled in 2003. His opposition to the 2006 Jerusalem pride parade and his remarks supporting corporal punishment caused controversy.

He served a full term after the 2006 elections. In May 2008 he announced he would not run again. He lives in Bnei Brak, is married and has 6 children.