Naftali Bennett is an Israeli politician who served as Minister of Diaspora Affairs from 2013 to 2019 and as Minister of Defense from 2019 to 2020. Bennett has led the New Right party since 2018, having previously led The Jewish Home party between 2012 and 2018. Aged 49, he was born in Haifa, Israel, to American Jewish immigrants. He spent some time in the United States as a child and like Netanyahu speaks fluent, U.S.-accented English. He is a modern-Orthodox religious Jew. If he becomes prime minister, Bennett would be Israel’s first religious head of government. He currently lives in the affluent city of Raanana, a suburb of Tel Aviv, with his wife and four children.
Though Bennett’s party trailed far behind both Netanyahu and Lapid’s in the last election, a rising push to oust Netanyahu in divergent quarters, amid political deadlock, has allowed him to emerge as a key power broker.