Religious Zionism MK Booted From All Knesset Committees After Voting Against Torah Study Law

MK Moshe Solomon was removed from all Knesset committee memberships Wednesday after breaking ranks with his Religious Zionism party and voting against the Basic Law: Torah Study, a move that drew immediate sanctions from party chairman Bezalel Smotrich.

Solomon voted against the bill in defiance of his faction's agreed position, which had been to support the law at this stage on the condition that a disputed clause equating yeshiva students with active IDF soldiers would be removed in later stages of legislation. Smotrich's office said Solomon had not raised objections during the faction meeting before the vote, making his decision to vote against in the plenum a clear breach of coalition discipline.

Solomon learned of his dismissal by email, and only discovered through media reports that he had simultaneously been stripped of all committee memberships. Speaking Thursday to Israel Hayom, he said the punishment had hurt him personally. Asked whether other MKs who had gone "further" in past defiances had escaped punishment, and whether racism was a factor in his case, Solomon said: "I hope and think not."

He did not apologize. In a statement posted to X, Solomon said he acted out of deep moral conviction. "I cannot look into the eyes of bereaved families from our community and vote in favor of a law that says: there is no need to combine Torah and military service," he wrote, adding that after accompanying dozens of yeshiva students and hesder graduates to burial throughout the war, he had promised himself he would not lend a hand to what he called a permanent moral injustice.

"I am loyal to the faction and to joint decisions," Solomon wrote. "But I am also a public emissary. I cannot be false to my own conscience." He said he accepted the party chairman's decision and hoped to change the faction's position going forward, closing his statement with a Talmudic passage from tractate Shabbat about those who are humiliated but do not humiliate in return, acting from love and accepting suffering with joy.