Speaker of the Knesset

The Speaker of the Knesset is the presiding officer in Israel's parliament (Knesset) and also fills the role of the President when he or she is incapacitated. Dalia Itzik, the current speaker, is the first woman to hold the post.

To date, Labour Unity's Nahum Nir is the only Speaker not to have come from the ruling party, though in two cases (Avraham Burg and Reuven Rivlin) the party of the speaker (One Israel and Likud respectively) lost power during their term.

Past and present Knesset speakers

#	Speaker	Party	Years	Knesset
1	Yosef Sprinzak	Mapai	1949-59	1st, 2nd, 3rd
2	Nahum Nir	Labour Unity	1959	3rd
3	Kadish Luz	Mapai, Alignment	1959-69	4th, 5th, 6th
4	Reuven Barkat	Alignment	1969-72	7th
5	Yisrael Yeshayahu	Alignment	1972-77	7th, 8th
6	Yitzhak Shamir	Likud	1977-80	9th
7	Yitzhak Berman	Likud	1980-81	9th
8	Menachem Savidor	Likud	1981-84	10th
9	Shlomo Hillel	Alignment	1984-88	11th
10	Dov Shilansky	Likud	1988-92	12th
11	Shevah Weiss	Labour	1992-96	13th
12	Dan Tichon	Likud	1996-99	14th
13	Avraham Burg	One Israel	1999-2003	15th
14	Reuven Rivlin	Likud	2003-06	16th
15	Dalia Itzik	Kadima	2006-present	17th

External links

• Knesset Speakers since the first Knesset Knesset website Template:En icon