--- description: Silvan Shalom: The Money Man title: Silvan Shalom: The Money Man image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) # Silvan Shalom: The Money Man by [Matt Rees](/author/matt-rees/) Jul 2, 2001 4:00 AM CUT by [Matt Rees](/author/matt-rees/) Jul 2, 2001 4:00 AM CUT The rabbi of the Tunisian synagogue in Beersheba rises to laud the city’s most powerful son. Using the arcane Jewish art of gematria, which ascribes numerical values to Hebrew letters, the rabbi tells the worshipers gathered for afternoon prayers that there is a difference of only one between the total for the title of the week’s Bible reading and the name Silvan Shalom. That, he continues, proves that the man who today serves as Israel’s Finance Minister is destined for bigger things. “We know we’ll see you as Prime Minister,” he tells Shalom. Tortuous as the rabbi’s math may be, Shalom privately agrees. Born in Tunis and raised poor in this dusty Negev Desert backwater, Shalom, 42, quit his post as head of the mammoth Israel Electric Co. a decade ago to enter politics. He has since forged a stronger power base among Likud Party faithful than any other Israeli pol. If the public or the party sours on Likud leader Ariel Sharon, the folksy Shalom would likely battle former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the party’s leadership. Netanyahu is a master of charisma who holds no political office and therefore won’t be tarnished if Sharon’s government fails. But the finance portfolio gives the slightly hunched, low-key Shalom a chance to show that he can manage a complex, modern economy without neglecting poor towns like Beersheba. Shalom has already managed his career pretty well. He quit a job as a political correspondent to work in business because he decided that journalists “end up being pathetic as they get older.” He married into the wealthy Moses family, which owns Israel’s biggest tabloid, and home these days is a leafy street in a Tel Aviv suburb, a world away from dusty Beersheba: “I tell my kids that my bedroom now is bigger than the entire apartment where I grew up.” Unlike all of Israel’s prime ministers, who have been of European descent, Shalom belongs to the underprivileged class of immigrant Jews from Arab countries. He grew up down the street from the Tunisian synagogue and worked four jobs in high school after robbers murdered his bank manager father. “It helps me to understand the people more than the other party leaders,” says Shalom. “I always know where I came from.” The tough business of formulating next year’s budget — Shalom’s first major test since taking the reins at the Treasury — begins this month. He’s selling it as a budget that pays attention to the poor — hence last week’s visit to Beersheba. But his most dramatic proposals are aimed at high-tech industries. “We’re much more affected by the crisis on nasdaq than the crisis in Nablus,” he says. To fend off problems in the sector that provided a third of Israel’s growth last year, Shalom tells Time his proposed budget will eliminate taxes on foreign investors in Israel. It’s the kind of move that won’t seem to mean much to the guys at the Tunisian synagogue, but it will have a bigger effect there than on Wall Street. [](undefined "undefined") **Q & A** **Q. What’s your biggest challenge as Finance Minister?** **A.**I came to this position at the worst time. Three problems are affecting our economy negatively and aren’t in my hands: the nasdaq crisis, the slowdown in the U.S. economy and the intifadeh, which isn’t helping investors to come here. **Q. Is this job a launching pad for the Prime Minister’s job?** **A.** Only one Israeli finance minister ever became PM. The main question is whether the people want you. In the last election the polls showed that if I had been a candidate the people wanted me to be the PM. But I allied with \[Likud leader Ariel\] Sharon. People tell me I should be the next PM. I hear those remarks everywhere. **Q. Why do you want to be PM?** **A.** I never announced my candidacy. But to be PM means that you can implement your agenda and do things your way. Everyone who becomes PM of Israel has quality and talent, but people want me to be PM because I’m different from the others. I didn’t grow up in the privileged places that bred the others. **Q. What’s your budget plan?** **A.** Each week I visit a different town to hear what people want. In Beersheba I met the university president and Likud party members, factory workers and the chamber of commerce. I want to give them answers that are different from the finance ministers before me who never visited anywhere. **Q. What are your chances of getting tax reforms through the Knesset?** **A.** My ministry’s director general told me he had spoken with \[union leader\] Amir Peretz about tax reform and that everything was okay. I met with Peretz and he said, “No way.” So I went back to the director general and he was amazed. “What is Peretz talking about?” he said. But I know how to make coalitions. **Q. How can you bypass the objections?** **A.** We may bring reform to high tech only, where we are a superpower. I will cut or even eliminate taxes on foreign investors. It will be for all companies, but its benefit will be mainly for young companies — and in Israel that means mostly high tech. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6681805/silvan-shalom-the-money-man/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6681805/silvan-shalom-the-money-man/"},"headline":"Silvan Shalom: The Money Man","datePublished":"2001-07-02T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T06:06:11.465Z","description":"Silvan Shalom: The Money Man","url":"https://time.com/archive/6681805/silvan-shalom-the-money-man/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Rees","url":"https://time.com/author/matt-rees/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6681805/silvan-shalom-the-money-man/","name":"Silvan Shalom: The Money Man"}}]}] ```