New head of Israel’s Shin Bet is a religious warrior
Netanyahu names David Zini to head “Israel’s FBI”; Zini predicted the Hamas invasion six months before it happened.
By Ryan Jones
Israel Today
May 23, 2025
Religious conservative Israelis often complain that they are passed over for top defense jobs. And much of the public thinks religious Israelis don’t serve at all, conflating all kippa-wearing Jews with the ultra-Orthodox, most of whom refuse to do mandatory military service.
Maj.-Gen. David Zini breaks the mold in both cases.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named Zini as the new head of the Israel Security Agency, known locally as the Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of the American FBI.
Netanyahu listed Zini’s impressive credentials, as well as his foresight, as the motivating factor in the appointment. But Zini’s no-nonsense approach and his deep familiarity with the religious nature of the conflict will also serve him and the State of Israel well.
Zini is a warrior among warriors. He served as a commando in the vaunted Sayeret Matkal (General Staff Reconnaissance Unit), commanded a battalion in the Golan Brigade, commanded the elite Egoz Unit, and founded the IDF’s Commando Brigade, which has seen so much action during the current war. Most recently he was head of IDF Training Command.
Perhaps even more relevant under current circumstance is that in March 2023, six months before Hamas invaded, Zini prepared a report warning that the IDF’s deployment around the Gaza Strip was faulty, and susceptible to surprise raids at nearly every point.
Sadly, his prescient warning was not heeded in time.
Zini is also a religious man. The son of a prominent rabbi in Ashdod, he wears a kippa and reportedly has 11 children. Zini comes from a family of rabbis of Algerian descent, making him somewhat the opposite of the usual candidates, who are typically secular Ashkenazi Jews who apply a more “Western” approach to Israel’s security, what many now deride as the failed “conceptzia.”
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