Background
Katz was born 29 September 1951 in Jerusalem.
Katz was born 29 September 1951 in Jerusalem.
A fifth generation Israeli, he graduated from the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva High School in Kfar Haroeh, and went on to study in Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem. In 1972, he completed his officers’ course with distinction and commanded his own commando unit in Sayeret Shaked.
Military career
In 1970, he enlisted in the IDF and volunteered to serve in Sayeret Shaked. He served under then OC Southern Command General Ariel Sharon in the 1971 campaign in Gaza. Katz served in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and was severely wounded.
Beit El
After six months in hospital, he returned, on crutches, to study four more years in Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, under the tutelage of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Mazkir Bnei Akiva Shlomo Aviner. In 1977 he joined the group that established the Beit El settlement in the West Bank. Later years
Bureaucratic life
Katz served as an assistant to Ariel Sharon when Sharon was Housing and Development Minister.
Katz was involved in the absorption of olim from the former Soviet Union, and was responsible for building more than 35,000 housing units in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. These houses doubled the Jewish population beyond the Green Line. Media
In 1987, Katz bought an oceangoing vessel upon which to set up a radio station, Arutz Sheva (Channel 7), as an alternative station with a national religious orientation.
The station never received a license to broadcast. After the station was shut down, in 2002, he founded the weekly Israeli newspaper BeSheva. In 2003, he was convicted of operating an illegal radio station and on two counts of perjury for having lied about the location of the broadcasts.
In 2006, President Moshe Katsav pardoned him. In December 2008, Katz became chairman of the National Union alliance. Katz pledges to rebuild sovereign Jewish Gaza.
In a March 2010 proposal to curb illegal immigration and the increase of illegal work aliens, Katz has suggested that a "special town" be created in southern Israel that would be "less convenient and glamorous" then the currently attractive city of Tel Aviv. Katz did not contest the 2013 elections, and consequently lost his Knesset seat.
Political career
In the 2009 elections the party won four seats, and Katz entered the Knesset.
He led the National Union party from 2008 to 2012, for whom he was a member of the Knesset, and is also the Executive Director of Beit El yeshiva Center Institutions and Arutz Sheva. In 1978 Katz together with his Rabbi Zalman Baruch Melamed split with the Beit El group and founded a new settlement which was called Beit El B. Katz was one of the original members of the Gush Emunim movement.