Yuli Edelstein

Yuli Edelstein is an Israeli politician, former government minister, Speaker of the Knesset, and Chair of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Edelstein (born August 5, 1958) was born in Chernovitz, part of the former Soviet Union (today Ukraine), to Jewish parents.  His parents, Yuri and Anita, however, later converted to Christianity but Yuli formed a connection to Jewish culture through his grandparents.

He went on to study foreign languages at the Moscow Institute for Teacher Training and during his second year of university, Edelstein decided to apply for an exit visa and emigrate to Israel. However, an exit visa required an affidavit from relatives abroad, a problem faced by many Soviet Jews. As a result, he made up a story of his grandfather having an illegitimate son in Israel, and found some Israelis who agreed to pose as his relatives. In 1979, he submitted his application for an exit visa. The application was rejected, and Edelstein was expelled from university.

Edelstein began studying Hebrew during this period, first on his own, then with an underground Hebrew teacher named Lev Ulanovsky. After Ulanovsky received an exit visa to Israel in 1979, Edelstein himself became an underground Hebrew teacher. In 1984, Edelstein and a number of other Hebrew teachers were arrested, he was charged with possession of drugs and sentenced to three and a half years. He was then sent to Siberian gulags and did hard labor, first in Buryatia and then in Novosibirsk. He was released in May 1985, after serving one year and eight months of his sentence.

In 1987, he was finally given permission to emigrate to Israel. Edelstein immediately was drafted and served in the Israel Defense Forces, attaining the rank of corporal. He later joined the Israeli political world, first as a member of the National Religious Party.  Later, he founded the Yisrael B'Aliyah party together with fellow Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. In 1996, he was elected to the Knesset and was appointed Minister of Immigrant Absorption in the government of the Benjamin Netanyahu. Edelstein was re-elected in 1999, and was appointed Deputy Immigrant Absorption Minister by Ariel Sharon in 2001.

He retained his seat in the 2003 elections, shortly after which Yisrael B'Aliyah merged into the Likud Party. Although Edelstein lost his seat in the 2006 elections, in which Likud was reduced to 12 seats, he re-entered the Knesset as a replacement for Dan Naveh in February 2007. He retained his seat in the 2009 elections after being placed twelfth on the party’s list, and was appointed Minister of Information and Diaspora in the Netanyahu government.

In January 2013, Edelstein was reelected to the Knesset with Likud, and on March 18, 2013, he was elected by the Knesset plenum as the 17th Speaker of the Knesset, a position he held consecutively until March 2020.

After Likud returned to power in 2023, Yuli Edelstein began his tenure as Chair of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset, at the 25th Knesset. In July 2025, after Edelstein refused to advance legislation exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service, the party voted to replace him as chair of the committee. In a 29–4 vote, Edelstein was ousted and replaced by Boaz Bismuth, a former journalist and Israel Hayom editor. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shifted his support to Bismuth under pressure from Haredi parties, despite initially backing another candidate. The move is seen as part of a broader coalition effort to appease ultra-Orthodox demands regarding military conscription.

Edelstein is married with two children.

Sources: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Moran Azulay, Sivan Hilaie, “After refusing to advance Haredi draft bill, Likud votes to replace Edelstein as chair of Knesset defense committee,” Ynet, (July 23, 2025).

Photo: Israeli Knesset.