Yossi Sarid | |
|---|---|
יוסי שריד | |
 | |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1992–1996 | Minister of the Environment |
| 1999–2000 | Minister of Education |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1974–1984 | Alignment |
| 1984–1992 | Ratz |
| 1992–2006 | Meretz |
| Other roles | |
| 2001–2002 | Leader of the Opposition |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1940-10-24)24 October 1940 |
| Died | 4 December 2015(2015-12-04) (aged 75) Tel Aviv, Israel |
Yossi Sarid (Hebrew:יוסי שריד; 24 October 1940 – 4 December 2015) was an Israeli politician and news commentator. He served as a member of the Knesset for theAlignment,Ratz andMeretz between 1974 and 2006. A formerMinister of Education andMinister of the Environment, he led Meretz between 1996 and 2003 and served as Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. Known for his determined moral stance and his willingness to pay the political price for that determination, Sarid was often referred to as Israel's moral compass.[1][2]
Yosef (Yossi) Sarid was born inRehovot, Sarid served in theArtillery Corps and as a Military Correspondent during his national service in theIDF. He earned an MA in political science fromNew School for Social Research inNew York City. He was a resident ofMargaliyot in theUpper Galilee.[3]
Sarid was married to Dorit, with whom he had three children, including the writerYishai Sarid. He died on the evening of 4 December 2015 from an apparent heart attack.[4] He is buried in Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha cemetery, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.[5]
Sarid worked as a media aide toPrime MinisterLevi Eshkol.He was first elected to the Knesset in1973 on the Alignment list.[6] He was re-elected in1977,1981 and1984. After the Alignment agreed to join a national unity government withLikud in 1984, Sarid left the party on 22 October to joinShulamit Aloni's Ratz.[7] He was re-elected on the Ratz list in1988.
In 1992, Ratz merged withShinui andMapam to form Meretz. The new party won 12 seats in theelections that year and joinedYitzhak Rabin's coalition. Sarid was appointed Minister of the Environment, a position he kept whenShimon Peres formed a new government after Rabin's assassination in 1995.
In 1996, Sarid replaced Aloni as Meretz leader. Although theLabor Party won the most seats inelections that year, Likud leaderBenjamin Netanyahu won thespecial election for Prime Minister and formed a right-wing government.
Sarid was reelected as leader of Meretzin 1999. In the1999 Knesset election, Meretz won 10 seats. Although Sarid had vowed not to join a coalition that included the ultra-OrthodoxShas,Ehud Barak persuaded Sarid to join the government, making him Minister of Education. Sarid explained the breaking of his vow in the need to promote the peace process. However, in 2000 Sarid resigned from the government and Meretz quit the coalition after failing to agree on authority to be given for Shas deputy minister of education.
In the2003 elections, Meretz was reduced to 6 seats, after which Sarid resigned as party leader, to be replaced byYossi Beilin. He remained a member of the Knesset until the2006 elections, when Meretz was reduced to 5 seats, after which he retired from politics, a plan he had announced the previous year.[8] In 2009, Meretz's presence was further reduced to three seats in the Knesset.[9]
Sarid wrote a weekly column forHaaretz newspaper.[4]
|  | |
| ||
Leaders of the opposition in Israel  | |
|---|---|
| Leader of the largest opposition party | |
| Officially designated opposition leader |
|
