Netanyahu puts extremist homophobic politician in charge of Israel’s Jewish identity Presumed PM-elect signs coalition deal with Avi Maoz, who holds radical views on non-Orthodox Judaism, LGBT Israelis, Arabs and women Carrie Keller-Lynn is a political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel One of the Knesset’s most far-right politicians, who holds non-pluralist Jewish views and anti-LGBT, sexist, and anti-Arab positions, will be the next government’s head of “Jewish identity,” following an agreement signed Sunday with presumed prime minister-to-be Benjamin Netanyahu.Avi Maoz, the single lawmaker of the fringe Noam party, will be appointed deputy minister and head a to-be-created authority for Jewish identity, which will be housed under the Prime Minister’s Office.But Netanyahu helped pave Maoz’s path into parliament, in both this year’s and last year‘s elections, by brokering alliances on the political far-right, and was not deterred from empowering so radical a politician with so resonant a role as head of a government authority on Jewish identity, albeit one with as-yet unspecified responsibilities.The coalition agreement with Noam, with the resonant responsibilities and deputy minister’s post for Maoz was announced just days after Likud agreed to make far-right provocateur Itamar Ben Gvir police minister with expanded authorities.Shortly after retaining his Knesset seat on November 1, as part of his Noam party’s alliance with Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionism party (a technical alliance engineered by Netanyahu for political expedience and disbanded last week), Maoz said that the Law of Return that establishes Jewish eligibility for Israeli citizenship was being abused to “bring gentiles” into Israel."