Former Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch Aims to Become Israel's Education Minister

Dr. Aliza Bloch, the former mayor of Beit Shemesh, announced Saturday night that she is entering national politics with a declared ambition to serve as Israel's next education minister. "I will be the next education minister of the State of Israel," she said, marking her formal move from local to national politics ahead of the coming elections.

Bloch is weighing several routes, including joining an existing party, aligning with an emerging political framework, or running independently. Names mentioned in connection with potential alignment include Benny Gantz, Yuli Edelstein, and Gilad Ardan, with a decision expected in the near future.

Her platform is built on a sharp critique of successive governments' treatment of education as a secondary priority. "It is customary to think of Israel as fighting on three fronts, yet the fourth front we have completely neglected," she said. "The education system is wearing down, gaps are growing, and the next generation is paying the price. Education is the infrastructure of security, the economy, equality of burden, and national resilience."

She also called for a system capable of functioning under emergency conditions, citing the lessons of the war and the pandemic. "You cannot prevent every war, every crisis, or every epidemic," she said. "But you also cannot accept a situation in which the education system is caught off guard every single time. A school year like this one must never repeat itself."

On the issue of equality of burden, she argued that shared civic responsibility must be cultivated well before military draft age. "Equality of burden does not start at age 18 and is not built only through legislation. It begins in education, in a sense of belonging, and in responsibility from a young age," she said. Addressing the ultra-Orthodox sector directly, she added: "I am not against Haredim. I am alarmed by a politics that leaves an entire public outside Israeli responsibility. In Beit Shemesh we proved that it is possible to create frameworks that respect Haredi identity while simultaneously connecting children to the state, to studies, to employment, and to service."

Bloch pointed to her tenure as mayor of the religiously and socially diverse city of Beit Shemesh as her main qualification for national office. "Beit Shemesh taught me that it is possible to connect different communities, but only when you are genuinely willing to work, not through headlines and not through the politics of camps," she said.

Since the outbreak of the war, she has been active in northern Israel, working on rebuilding the education system in Kiryat Shmona and promoting a program to establish a high school for gifted students in science and the arts, in cooperation with the Education Ministry and the mayor of Netivot. "If we want to build a different future here, we need to stop talking about the periphery and start genuinely investing in it," she said. "A child in Kiryat Shmona or in Netivot must receive the same opportunity as a child in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem."

In the coming weeks, Bloch is expected to step up her public activity and meet with political and civic figures around a platform built on national responsibility, Zionism, security, public education, equality of opportunity, and strengthening Israel's peripheral regions. "I will not compromise on the security of the state, on shared responsibility, on education for excellence, or on a real opportunity for every child in Israel," she said. "The path to repairing Israel begins in education, and I intend to take responsibility for that path."