Zalman Yitzchak Katz
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The Honorable Zalman Yitzchak Katz | |
|---|---|
 Chief Inspector Katz observing a military parade at the RYPA - Ashkelon, c. 2019. | |
| Chief Inspector of the RYIS | |
| Assumed office February 2nd, 2015 | |
| Preceded by | Nosson Lifshultz |
| Ramatkal (Lt. General), General Staff, Royal Yisraeli Defense Forces | |
| In office June 30th, 2010 – February 2nd, 2015 | |
| Preceded by | Schlomo Weissman |
| Succeeded by | Avi Goldschmidt |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 10th, 1959 Yerushalayim, Yisrael |
| Nationality | Yisraeli |
| Political party | National Union Party (1977 - 1985) Royalist Conservative Party (1985 - Present) |
| Spouse | Chana I. Katz |
| Residence | Yerushalayim |
| Alma mater | B.S., Military Science, RYPA - Yerushalayim |
| Profession | Military officer, Functionary, Intelligence officer |
Zalman Yitzchak Katz (born March 10th, 1959) is the current Chief Inspector of the Royal Yisraeli Intelligence Service and formerly a two-star general in the RYDF's General Staff. He is a member of the Royalist Conservative Party.
Before his promotion to Chief Inspector, Katz was an RYDF lieutenant general in the military General Staff. He is known as a fierce war hawk and nationalist. He is an advocate in the military School of Unilateral Action and promotes frequent Yisraeli military intervention and intelligence operations abroad, though he often acknowledges the role of having multinational military allies assist Yisrael.
He was appointed at the tail-end of the first Feldman term after the retirement of Nosson Lifshultz. He was retained in his role by the incoming Katz administration in early 2020.
Early life and education
Katz was born in March 1959, in Har Nof, Yerushalayim, Yerushalayim District, to a middle-income military family. His family was one of many that in the 1960s and 1970s would constitute the emerging national-chareidi Chardal sector. His father, Akiva Katz, served in the Royal Yisraeli Army as a tank commander, and saw action in the Third and Fourth West Scipian Wars as well as the Year of Blood. His mother, Miriam, was a housewife.
His neighborhood was a mix of Dati (religious) families but had a modern and nationalist bent to it. He attended Har Nof Yeshiva for his primary education, and he applied and was accepted as a legacy to the Royal Yisraeli Political Academy system in its Yerushalayim campus for secondary education.
In the mid-1970s, when he was old enough to vote and started to pay attention to politics and broader social debates, he was attracted to the right-wing nationalist, Chardal-oriented National Union political party.
Military career
He matriculated in 1977 from the RYPA as a newly commissioned second lieutenant. He was assigned to the 2nd Nachal Chareidi Infantry Brigade, which was stationed in the Northern District along the Sydalon-Yisrael border from 1977-81.
He decided to stay in after his national service, receiving a promotion to first lieutenant and asking to be reassigned to the Mista'aravi unit, a special forces command that targeted the post-Yarden rise in Yisraeli and Sydalene Christian terror campaigns.
He was promoted for his classified service in 1985 to captain, and later to major in 1994. After 1994, he was put in a line staff posting.
He reached the rank of Lt. General ("Ramatkal") in 2010, and was appointed to the General Staff of the RYDF. President Noah Feldman tapped Katz in February 2015 to fill the vacancy in the post of Chief Inspector of the RYIS, the country's top spy chief.
Political views
Chief Inspector Katz is a well-known war hawk and nationalist, and self-identifies as part of the Conservative right. He is critical of the rise of political opposition to Yisrael's halachic state and growing social liberal and antiwar feelings from the left.
Despite sharing like-minded nationalism, Katz refused entreaties to join the far-right Northern League, viewing them as insufficiently religious and too controversial. As a youth and cadet, he had opposed the Yarden Accords, but later told a journalist after he was a senior RYDF staff officer that he "was at peace with" and "accepted" the 1973 accord between Yisrael and Sydalon.
Critics have charged his seeming callous disregard for his men's lives in pursuit of accomplishing the mission borders on egotistical, a charge Katz strongly denies.
Personal Life and Family
He is married to Chana Katz (neé Friedman) since 1981. Together, they have a family of 9 children, 12 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.
Two of his sons are officers in the Royal Yisraeli Army, one serves as a aircraft engineer in the Yisraeli Air Force, one is a talmid chacham learning in kollel in the famed Mir Yeshiva, three daughters are housewives with their own families, and one daughter is married and a professor of military history.