JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former Knesset minister Rabbi Daniel Hershkowitz was appointed the president of Bar-Ilan University.

Hershkowitz’s appointment was approved unanimously on Monday during a meeting of the university’s board of trustees. He will begin serving in October, at the start of the 2013-14 academic year.

The Haifa native succeeds Moshe Kaveh, who is completing 17 years as Bar-Ilan president.

Hershkowitz, 60, served as minister of science and technology in the last Israeli government as a member of the Jewish Home party. He did not run in the Knesset elections in January.

He earned three degrees in mathematics from the Technion in Haifa, and completed his army service in 1979 in the intelligence corps with the rank of major.

Hershkowitz studied at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem and received his rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate in 2001.