Chikli was born in Jerusalem, in 1981 to a Tunisian Jewish family. He is the son of Rabbi Eitan Chikli and artist Camille Chikli. His parents made aliyah from France.[2] In 2022, Eitan led the Universidad Hebraica in Mexico City. The family lived in Kibbutz Hanaton, the only kibbutz founded by the Masorti movement.[3] Eitan explained that Amichai "grew up in a house where our best friends were Conservative and Reform rabbis. He knows that they [progressive Jews] don’t have horns or tails."[4] The family attended synagogue services from different streams of Judaism.[4]
After completing high school, he spent a year in Ma'ayan Baruch attending the Social Leadership Institute.[5] He then joined the Israel Defense Forces and served in the Golani Brigade and the Shayetet 13 naval unit.[5][3] He subsequently studied for a bachelor's degree in security and Middle Eastern studies at the Tactical Command Academy, after which he became a company commander in the Egoz Unit. After leaving the army he began studying for a master's degree in diplomacy and security at Tel Aviv University.[5] During his studies he established the Tavor Academy for Social Leadership in Nazareth Illit in 2010.[5]
Political career
Amichai Chikli in 2021Russian-Israeli blogger Ezra Mor and Chikli in 2024
Entering politics, Chikli was ninth on the New Right list for the April 2019 elections,[6] but the party failed to win a seat.[7] He was then fifth on the Yamina list,[1] for the 2021 elections and elected a Member of the Knesset (MK) when Yamina won seven seats. After Yamina joined a coalition government that included Meretz and an Arab party, Chikli voted against the new government in its investiture vote on 13 June 2021, the only Yamina MK to do so.[8] In July 2021, he voted against the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law that would prevent Palestinians from marrying Israelis and receiving citizenship, resulting in its failure to pass in a 59–59 tie vote.[9]
Chikli voted against his party a total of 754 times, regularly assisting the opposition.[10] On 25 April 2022, a Knesset committee voted 7–0 in favor of a request from Yamina to declare him a "retiree", meaning he could only run for the Knesset as part of a new party. Chikli was only the third Knesset member to be declared a retiree.[11]
Chikli resigned from the Knesset in July 2022 to run on the Likud list in the 2022 legislative election, and was given the list's 14th spot.[12][13] Judge Yitzhak Amit, chairman of the Central Election Committee, initially disqualified Chikli from running on the Likud list based on the allegation that Chikli violated election law in resigning from the Knesset only a few months after announcing his withdrawal from his party. Likud appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned his disqualification on 9 October.[14][15][16] He was subsequently elected to the Knesset and sworn in on 29 December, before resigning on 17 January 2023 under the Norwegian Law after being named Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.[17][18][3] He served concurrently as Minister for Social Equality from 2022 to 2024. He resigned from the Social Equality ministry in January 2024 in an effort cut government spending amid the Israel-Hamas War.[19]
In January 2023, at the Israeli American Council's conference in Texas he discussed proposals to amend the grand-child clause of the Law of Return. He expressed concern that a high number of recent immigrants from former Soviet Union countries are not connected to Judaism and that many do not settle long-term in Israel.[21] He announced that diaspora Jewry would be involved in any process to revise the law and that he supports compromise.[22]
In 2023, Chikli launched a new initiative, Project Aleph Bet in collaboration with the Jewish Federations of North America to invest $40 million in the training of North American Jewish day school teachers.[23][24][25] His ministry has also launched the UnitED program, used by 650 Jewish day schools around the world. The program aims to strengthen Jewish identity, increase literacy regarding Israel and Zionism, build resilience amid anti-semitism and bring participants closer to their diaspora Jewish communities.[26]
His ministry has also led over 100 civil initiatives since the attacks, allocating tens of millions of shekels to projects such as the Nova music festival exhibition, The Moment Music Stood Still. The touring exhibition in the United States memorializes the memory of the victims of the Nova music festival massacre.[27][29] The exhibition attracted over 100, 000 visitors per month in New York.[29] His ministry also launched a platform of information documenting concerning the October 7 attacks.[30]
In October 2023, he also condemned Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had urged the Israeli Police to be prepared for widespread Arab Israeli unrest after October 7. Chikli reiterated that “so far, the Arab population has shown much solidarity and responsibility.” He continued: "And this is especially true for the Bedouin population in the Negev, which has suffered victims and missing people and is displaying responsibility and solidarity with quite a few initiatives for hosting families and helping distressed citizens."[31]
Chikli also supports the hasbara efforts of former government spokesperson Eylon Levy. Levy's State of the Nation podcast, in which he interviews guests about Israel, antisemitism, and Jewish history, is partly funded by Chikli's ministry.[32]
In May 2024, the Israeli government approved Chikli's proposal to memorialize non-Israeli Jews in the diaspora that were murdered by perpetrators that had anti-Semitic motives.[33] In the resolution that was passed it was agreed to set a date to commemorate the murdered Jews in the diaspora, to create physical monument and integrate their stories into the education system.[33] A website and database will be open to the public to view details of the victims that are being memorialized.[33]
In June 2024, he was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief, Zvika Klein at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York. On rising rates of antisemitism in the diaspora, Chikli reiterated his ministry's mission to support the safety of diaspora communities, monitor antisemitism and investigate student organizations hostile to Israel.[27] In August 2024, his ministry launched a new monitoring system, the National Command Post (“Mashlat”) to track online antisemitic discourse.[34][34][35]
Personal life
He is married to Hadas, a school psychologist in Nahalal, with whom he has three children.[36] They live on Kibbutz Hanaton in northern Israel.[2] He occasionally attends the kibbutz's Conservative synagogue.[3]
His 2019 entry into national politics was accompanied by a flurry of excitement in the Israeli media and online over his "handsome" physical appearance.[37]
Views and opinions
Chikli in 2022
In 2021, he distanced himself from any denominational affiliation: "I define myself as a Jew, without any additional [descriptors]." He criticized negative attitudes towards Conservative Judaism in Israel, arguing that the movement is "bound by halacha" and that the movement's egalitarian prayer should not warrant vitriol.[36] He supports egalitarian prayer, at the Western Wall and the Kotel compromise.[38] Egalitarian prayer is part of the practice of Conservative and Reform Jews.
At the same he expressed political criticism towards the Reform Judaism movement in Israel for what he perceives as the movement's characterization of settlers as "violent".[38] He has also criticized the political activity of "some of Reform Judaism [in the United States] – the progressives and organizations like IfNotNow – are alienating themselves from their own people".[36][3] In a 2021 interview with The Forward, he expressed to having no issue with American Jewry that support the Democratic Party and that he has no expectations that their vote is based on Israel's interests.[39] Chikli was asked about Reform Jews at the Betar World Conference in Jerusalem in January 2023, he responded "we will back any Jew regardless of their backgrounds and beliefs."[40]
His father, Eitan Chikli, a Conservative rabbi has spoken of his son's "openness and "tolerance of inclusion" towards different streams of Judaism, that was informed by his upbringing.[4]
In 2022, he was critical of Tel Aviv Pride, advocating instead for "subdued sexuality" in public.[41] In a June 2022 interview with The Jerusalem Post, he expressed concern at the treatment of Jewish participants at a gay pride rally in Chicago when they were excluded from the rally for bringing a flag that combined both the pride and Israeli flags.[38] In a September 2023 interview, he distanced himself from his earlier comments that had caused controversy. He said that previous comments that he had made about pride parades had been taken out of context: "I was comparing between the parade in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where in some parts they undress in the street, and that looks vulgar to me,". He stated that preference in terms of sexuality is "none of my business" and that his government is "giving more money to the LGBT community than the previous one, I am the one who fought for this budget."[42] Earlier in the year he criticized a Haredi rabbi on Twitter after the rabbi had condemned Amir Ohana, the openly-gay Knesset speaker. Chikli responded: "There is no disease more dangerous than baseless hatred."[43]
In a February 2023 interview, he characterized the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as the most "antisemitic movement on the face of earth."[20]
In 2023 Chikli stated that the Palestinian Authority is a "neo-Nazi entity" and anti-semitic and that it was necessary to "examine alternatives to its existence".[44]
In May 2023, he faced criticism for defending Elon Musk. Musk had written tweets about Jewish philanthropistGeorge Soros that were condemned for having anti-Semitic overtones by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Anti-Defamation League. Chikli accused Soros of "[financing] the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel"[45]
In June 2023 he was criticized on Twitter (X) by left-wing Jewish organization J Street. Chikli responded by condemning the group as a "hostile organization that harms the interests of the state of Israel".[46][47][48] He characterized J Street's support for the Iran Nuclear Deal as being against Israel's interests.[48]
He accused former Prime Minister Yair Lapid of spearheading the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, because of his plans to criticize the new Israeli government when addressing Jewish audiences in the United States.[41]
In March 2024, Chikli decried a surge of antisemitism in the United Kingdom, adding that London has become the most hostile city for Jews in the West and that Jewish residents and visitors feel forced to hide their identity for safety reasons.[49]
In October 2024, his ministry published a report on antisemitism in Canada since the October 7 attacks.[50]
In December 2024, he criticized Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau for being the only G7 leader to not have visited Israel since the October 7 attacks. Chikli also expressed grave concern at the attacks on Jewish schools and synagogues in Toronto and Montreal.[51] On Twitter (X) he wrote: "Canada is no longer safe for Jews". Canadian Jewish MP Anthony Housefather agreed that antisemitism is increasing but that Canada "has been and remains one of the best places in the world for Jews to live."[51]
In a May 2024 interview with The Jerusalem Post podcast, he condemned the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States: "You cannot pretend that October 7 didn't happen,", adding "You cannot stand next to a sign that says 'Decolonization by all means necessary' and pretend that you don't understand what that means."[52] Chiklo expressed criticism towards university leaders: "I have no expectations from the leadership of these universities."[52] For Chikli, the motivations of the protestors are both ideological and psychological. He cited Mattias Desmet, a Ghent University psychology professor: "Lack of social connections, social isolation, lacking meaning in life. These feelings create anxiety and frustration, and that is the foundation that pushes these young people to become part of this mass formation," Chikli told the podcast. He concluded that this "provides them with an immediate sense of belonging, an immediate sense of meaning."[52]
In July 2024 Haaretz accused Chikli of actively supporting Marine le Pen, the French nationalist leader, after he made comments on Kan radio that she would be "excellent for Israel" for her "firm stance" against Hamas, the International Criminal Court, and antisemitism.[53]
In September 2024 he stated that the IDF had the right to 'take over' areas in Southern Lebanon from which missiles could be fired into Israel.[54]
In December 2024, he praised the Swedish government for its decision to stop funding UNRWA, adding that the aid organization “has lost its legitimacy to exist” amid the involvement of staff members in terror activities.[56]
In the same month he criticized Pope Francis over a Vaticannativity scene display that featured a keffiyeh.[57] In a letter addressed to the Pope, Chikli wrote: "There is no other way to understand this decision than as a deliberate adoption of the Palestinian narrative". He also condemned the Pope for having recently said that Israel "might be" committing genocide: "As a nation that lost six million of its sons and daughters in the Holocaust, we are especially sensitive to the trivialization of the term ‘genocide’—a trivialization that is dangerously close to Holocaust denial."[57]
.jpg)
.jpg)
