Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Left-Wing Israeli Leader Zehava Galon Quits Knesset To Build Party

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Left-wing Meretz Party leader Zehava Galon is resigning from Knesset.

Galon made the announcement on Wednesday, after meeting with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein. She said she will dedicate the next few months to working to strengthening the party. She said she wanted to make the party open to new people and would help the party to achieve this by changing its internal election system, Ynet reported.

She will be replaced in Knesset by Meretz Secretary-General Mossi Raz. The party currently has five seats in the Knesset and sits in the opposition.

Galon, 61, was first elected to Knesset in 1999, and has served as chairman of the Meretz party since 2012.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday afternoon Galon wrote that she is leaving the Knesset with a “heavy heart.”

“I love the Knesset but I love Meretz more, and I know that if Meretz does not open itself up it will cease to exist. The left is a much larger audience than the number of people who voted for Meretz. To fullfil that potential, Meretz must change,” she wrote.

 

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.