MK Shai Piron
MK Shai PironFlash 90

Reports that MK Shai Piron (Yesh Atid) will be resigning the Knesset are premature, a spokesperson for the former education minister said Sunday night.

A report on Channel One said Piron would be leaving the Knesset for personal reasons, and that his seat would be taken by Elazar Stern, next on the Yesh Atid list.

According to the spokesperson, Piron “hasn't yet made up his mind” about quitting the Knesset and returning to education, as the Channel One report indicated. Stern had no comment, and neither did Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid.

Piron was Education Minister in the previous government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and was seen as seeking to ameliorate the anti-religious rhetoric that many in the religious community accused his boss, Lapid, of expressing.

Stern is considered a much more direct critic of the religious establishment and of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.