Birth Name: Bezalel Yoel Smotrich
Place of Birth: Haspin, Golan Heights
Date of Birth: 27 February, 1980
Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish
Bezalel Smotrich is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He has been Minister of Finance, and Minister in the Defense Ministry, both, since 2022. He was previously Minister of Transport, from 2019 to 2020. He was leader of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism.
He was born in Haspin, a religious Jewish settlement in the Golan Heights. He was raised in the settlement Beit El, in the West Bank. His father was an Orthodox rabbi. He attended the yeshivas Mercaz HaRav Kook, Yashlatz, and Yeshivat Kedumim. Bezalel was a secretary of the Operations Division of the General Staff during his brief service in the IDF.
Bezalel is married to Revital, with whom he has seven children. He is an Orthodox Jew. He lives on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, on land described as “in breach of the settlement’s master plan.”
Bezalel’s paternal grandfather was Yakov/Yaakov Smotrich (the son of Chaim Smotrici-Klinger and Elca Hachoen). Yakov was born in Romania, and moved to Israel before WWII. His parents Chaim and Elca drowned on an Aliyah Bet ship while trying to reach Israel. Chaim was born in Skala Podil’S’Ka, Borshchivs’kyi district, Ukraine, the son of Mendel Smotrici-Klinger and Debora Klinger. Bezalel’s great-grandmother Elca was born in Bucharest, Romania, the daughter of Yehuda Leib Hachoen and Reizel.
Bezalel’s paternal grandmother was Bruriya/Bruria Rapelfeld (the daughter of Yerucham Rapelfeld and Malka Cohen). Bruria was a Holocaust survivor, who moved to Israel after WWII.
Bezalel’s maternal grandfather was Shimon Yosef Ben Shemen/Monzon (the son of Moshe Mordechai Monzon and Haya Levin). Shimon was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and was said to have been a thirteenth-generation Jerusalemite. Moshe was born in Jerusalem, the son of Shimon Yoel Yosef Monsohn and Yute Gitl Yaffe, who was from Hebron; both of their fathers were from Mogilev, Belarus. Bezalel’s great-grandmother Haya was born in Riga, Latvia, the daughter of Aharon Levin.
Bezalel’s maternal grandmother was Sarah/Sara Fine (the daughter of Chaim Moshe Fine and Yocheved Eisenberg). Sarah was born in Metula, Tzfat, North District, Israel. Chaim was born in Panevezys, Lithuania, the son of Shalom Shachne Fine and Beile Rivka Gordon. Yocheved was the daughter of Rabbi David Eisenberg/Ajzenberg and Dina/Dyna Ester Henche Degenshein/Degenszajn, who were from Miedzyrzec Podlaski, bialski, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland.
Source: Genealogy of Bezalel Smotrich – https://www.geni.com
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