Eli Yishai
| Eli Yishai | |
|---|---|
Yishai in 2009
|
|
| Date of birth | 26 December 1962 |
| Place of birth | Jerusalem, Israel |
| Knessets | 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 |
| Faction represented in Knesset | |
| 1996–2015 | Shas |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1996–2000 | Minister of Labor & Social Welfare |
| 2001–2002 | Deputy Prime Minister |
| 2001–2002 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| 2002–2003 | Deputy Prime Minister |
| 2002–2003 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| 2006–2013 | Deputy Prime Minister |
| 2006–2009 | Minister of Industry, Trade & Labour |
| 2009–2013 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
Eliyahu "Eli" Yishai (Hebrew: אליהו "אלי" ישי, born 26 December 1962) is an Israeli politician. A former leader of Shas, he represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until 2015, also holding several ministerial posts, including being Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Minister of Industry, Trade & Labour. In December 2014, he left Shas to establish the Yachad party.
Yishai was born in Jerusalem in 1962, to Zion (1933–2004) and Yvette-Fortuna Yishai (1934–2009), who had immigrated to Israel from Tunis in Tunisia. The second of seven children, he studied at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem and Yeshivat HaNegev in Netivot. In 1980, Yishai enlisted in the IDF and served until 1983.
Yishai is married and has five children.
In 1984, he entered political life. He became a member of Jerusalem City Council in 1987, although he left the Council the following year. In 1988, Yishai served as an aide to Aryeh Deri who was then Minister of Internal Affairs. Although Yishai did not win a seat in the Knesset in the 1992 election, he was appointed general secretary of Shas. He was first elected to the Knesset in the 1996 elections, after which he was made Minister of Labor and Social Welfare in Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
He retained his seat in the 1999 elections, and was again appointed Minister of Labor and Social Welfare in Ehud Barak's government. In 2000, Shas leader Deri was convicted of taking $155,000 in bribes while serving as Interior Minister and given a three-year jail sentence. Deri was replaced by Yishai as head of the party. Although Deri's sentence was only for three years, the court ruled that he be banned from entering politics for ten years. As leader of Shas, Yishai was seen as a political hawk and steered the party to the right of where it had been under Deri. Yishai tried to recruit voters from the settlements and took the party out of Ehud Barak's coalition government in advance of the Camp David summit with Yasser Arafat in 2000.
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