Yehoshua Matza

Yehoshua Matza
Yehoshua Matza
	Minister of Health
Faction represented in the Knesset
1984–2002	Likud
Personal details
Born	8 August 1931; Jerusalem, Israel

Yehoshua Matza (

State of Israel Bonds

, a global enterprise that generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. Israel utilizes the funds for economic development projects.

Matza was recommended for the post in 2002 by then-

Finance Minister Silvan Shalom. Matza served 18 years in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of the Likud party.^[1] He was a cabinet minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the portfolio of minister of health. Matza also served 20 years on the Jerusalem City Council, 10 of which were in the capacity of deputy mayor. His final years in public service were as the president of the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation

in Jerusalem.

Biography

The Matza family arrived in

Lehi at age 14. Of his three brothers, two were also active in the Jewish underground; one in the Haganah and the other in the Irgun.^[2]

His Lehi activities included posting anti-British flyers during the night, participating in paramilitary activities, and helping to hide weapons, sometimes in synagogues behind the arks where

1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem was the scene of intense fighting, and Matza participated in an operation that enabled Lehi fighters to blast their way into the Old City. The operation entailed planting a bomb outside the New Gate

of the Old City walls. However, the plan was aborted when the bomb failed to detonate.

In 1949, Matza resumed his schooling. After graduating high school, he was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces. He attained the rank of captain in the artillery corps. At university, he studied law and accounting. He began his private sector career with a Jerusalem accounting firm.

He was married and had four children.^[3]

Political career

Matza first entered politics by joining

In 1978, by which time Herut had merged into Likud

, Jerusalem held municipal elections based on voting for a candidate as opposed to the traditional method of voting for a party slate. Matza ran for city mayor, but lost to the incumbent, Teddy Kollek.

Prior to the 1984 Knesset elections Matza was placed on Likud's list. When the party won 41 seats, Matza took his place in the Knesset. He sat on the Knesset Finance Committee until 1988, when he retained his seat in elections that year. Re-elected in 1992 and 1996, he was appointed Minister of Health under Netanyahu in November 1996, and also sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. When his efforts to increase the Health Ministry budget failed, Matza abstained from a key Knesset vote on the national budget. According to Israeli law, the budget must pass three Knesset readings by a specified date, otherwise the government will fall. In protest to what he viewed as insufficient allocations to the Health Ministry, Matza refused to participate in the vote. Following Matza's protest, Netanyahu agreed to increase government health allocations.

Although Matza retained his seat in the

1999 elections, Likud were defeated by Ehud Barak's One Israel alliance. Barak's involvement in discussions with Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat over the division of Jerusalem led to Matza (then chairman of the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee) submitting a bill to amend the Jerusalem Law

. The bill, which passed with the approval of 84 out of 120 Knesset members, stipulated that no decisions changing the status of Jerusalem could be made without majority consent.