Silvan Shalom

Silvan Shalom (Hebrew: ציון סילבן משה שלום‎ (officially Tzion Silvan Moshe Shalom), (born 4 October 1958) is an Israeli politician, member of the Knesset from the Likud party and the country's senior Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development and the development of the Negev and the Galilie. He previously served as the country's Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, minister of science and deputy defense minister.

Biography

Born in Gabès, Tunisia a Sephardic Spanish Jewish Beit Shalom dynasty, Shalom made an aliyah to the city of Beersheba, capital of the Negev, southern part of Israel in 1959. On November 3rd, 1964, while Shalom was 6 years old, his Father, Shimon Shalom, a bank manager and a member of the Beitar movement, who was 37 years old at the time, was murdered during a bank robbery. The 2 assassins, David Ben Harush and Josef Dahan, both citizens of Beer Sheva, at the age of 27, robbed 500 Liras from Shimon. When Dahan was trying to escape, he shot Shalom, who tried to resist the robbery. Shalom was seriously injured and died on his way to the hospital. The murder was notoriously known as the first Bank robbery in the history of the young state of Israel. At the age of 18, he was inducted into the Israel Defense Forces and achieved the rank of Sergeant.

Education and early career

After completing his service in the IDF Israeli defense force Shalom attended Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, from which he received a BA in Economics as well as a CPA. Certification. During that time Shalom was elected as the chairman of the university's students' union and later as the vice chairman of the national students' union. He later attended Tel Aviv University, from which he received an LLB law degree as well as an MA in Public Policy. Shalom started as a journalist. During his first degree, he began to work as a journalist at the "Yediot Aharonot" newspaper in the student section. After that he started working in the "Rosh Berosh" magazine and in the Negev's local newspaper. in 1980 he moved to Tel Aviv and started working at the "hadashot" newspaper. In 1984, he was appointed as the head political and economical correspondent.

Politics

In 1985, Shalom was appointed adviser to the minister of treasury Yitzhak Moda'i, who was later appointed ministry of justice. At the age of 31 he was appointed as the CEO of the ministry of energy and 2 years later, in 1990, he was appointed director in chief of the Israeli electric company.

Knesset member

In 1992, at the age of 34, Shalom was elected Knesset member. He was elected on the 34th spot in the Likud list to the Knesset and the party received only 33 seats in the 13th Knesset. After former security minister, Moshe Arens resigned, Shalom succeeded in becoming an MK. As a young MK, his first bill was in the academic field. In 1992 there was room for only 100 thousand students, with no space for anymore students. Shalom was acting to allow all the students to get accepted, when the reduction of the students would be made at the end of the first year. Due to his bill, awareness has been made to the problem and the Israeli colleges were established. In the year 2010, for the first time, more students started their degree in colleges. Shalom, during his first term was the first male MK to be a member of the committee on the status of women. He was also the chairman of the subcommittee regarding the capital market, chairman of the subcommittee of energy and a member of the economic affairs committee. In 1996, a year after the assassination of p.m. Yitzhak Rabin from the labor party, the Likud, headed by the opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, was united with 2 parties: Gesher and Tzomet and ran in the election against the Labor party, headed by acting P.M. Shimon Peres. The Likud recived 32 seats, 2 fewer than the labor party, but due to the direct election of the P.M. at the time of the election, Netanyahu won and became P.M.

After challenging Netanyahu for party leadership in late 2005 and achieving second place, Shalom was granted the second spot on the Likud list to the 2006 general election and thus did not compete in the 11 January 2006 primaries. He was placed seventh on the party's list for the 2009 elections.

Shalom is married to Israeli talk show host Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes. The couple have five children and reside in Ramat Gan.

In January 2010, he asked Pope Benedict XVI to open the wartime archives of the papacy of Pius XII.^[1]

External links

• Official website
• Silvan Shalom Knesset website

References