(Likud Yisrael Beitenu)


Yuli Edelstein was born in 1958 in Chernovitz, Ukraine (part of the former USSR). He studied foreign languages at the Moscow Institute for Teacher Training.

A former aliya activist and Hebrew teacher in Moscow and a Prisoner of Zion (1984-1987), he immigrated to Israel in 1987 where he served as Vice President of the Zionist Forum in Israel (1988-1996).

In 1990 he graduated from the Jerusalem Fellows Program, and from 1990-93 was a Department Head at the Melitz Center for Zionist Education.

In 1993-1994 he served as an advisor to then opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu.

He was a founding member of Yisrael ba-Aliya in 1996, and has been a member of Knesset since May of that year, serving as a member of the House Committee, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, the Education and Culture Committee, the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and the State Control Committee.

Yuli Edelstein served as Minister of Immigrant Absorption, from June 1996-July 1999, and as Deputy Minister of Immigrant Absorption from March 2001 until February 2003. In the 16th and 17th Knesset he served as Deputy Speaker.

In March 2009 Yuli Edelstein was appointed Minister of Public Affairs and the Diaspora, serving until March 2013, when he was elected Speaker of the Knesset.

He is married and has two children.