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Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician and writer. Until May 2005, he was a Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs. Born in 1948 in Ukraine, Sharansky became one of the founding members and spokesperson of the Jewish movement in the unofficial Moscow Helsinki Watch Group. When he applied for an exit visa in 1973, hoping to move to Israel, Sharansky was denied the visa for "security reasons." Eventually arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1977 on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage, Sharansky spent 10 years in a Soviet prison. His wife, Avital, organized an international campaign calling for Sharansky's release, finally obtaining that release on February 11, 1986. He arrived in Israel that same night.
Elected president of the newly created Zionist Forum, the umbrella organization of former Soviet activists, in 1988, Sharansky worked to promote the cause of Soviet Jewry. To that end, he founded and was elected chairman of the Yisrael B'Aliyah party in 1995; the party won seven Knesset seats, and Sharansky was appointed Minister of Industry and Trade, a post he filled from 1996-1999. He then served one year as Minister of the Interior, and, in 2001 was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister. In 2003, Sharansky became the Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, serving in that position until 2005. In 2006, Scharansky resigned from the Knesset in order to establish the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center. He is chairman of the institute and also serves as Chairman of the Board of Beit HaTefutsot, Israel's Museum of the Diaspora.
Sharansky and his wife, Avital, have two daughters and live in Jerusalem, Israel.
Last updated: March 16, 2009.
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