Yosef Lapid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yosef (Tommy) Lapid (Hebrew: יוסף (טומי) לפיד), (born December 27, 1931) is an Israeli journalist and former politician and media manager.
Lapid is best known for leading the secular-liberal Shinui party from 1999 to 2006. He is vehemently opposed to the influence and power of Orthodox, and in particular Haredi political parties and groups in Israel.
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[edit] Biography
Born Tomislav Lampel (Serbian Cyrillic: Томислав Лампел) in Novi Sad (at the time Kingdom of Yugoslavia, now Serbia) in 1931, he later immigrated to Israel in 1948. As of 2005, he was living in Tel Aviv and was married with two children. He is the father of popular television personality and columnist Yair Lapid. Lapid is a Holocaust survivor.
[edit] Public career
Lapid holds a Law degree from Tel Aviv University. He is a former chairman of the Israeli Chess Union, a former Director of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and Chairman of Association of Cable Companies.
Lapid was a journalist in Maariv and wrote both political publicist articles and humorous articles and satires.
Lapid was also one of the three hosts of Popolitica, a TV show on Channel 1 (Israel Broadcasting Authority) which brought politicians to debate on current affairs. The two other hosts were Amnon Dankner (today the chief editor of Maariv) and Rabbi Israel Eichler (also a Knesset member, but on behalf of the Haredi Judaism party Agudat Israel). The three were known for their rather inflammatory and hot-tempered rhetoric. Lapid presently appears on Council of Wise Men, a TV show on Israel 10 and has his own radio program on Israeli radio Reshet Bet.
[edit] Political career
Lapid joined Avraham Poraz's liberal-centrist Shinui party and turned it into a leading party in the Israeli politics. In the 1999 general elections Lapid and Shinui won 6 seats and in the 2003 general elections the party won 15 seats, making it the third-largest party in the 16th Assembly of the Knesset, behind Labor and Likud. Shinui's success and eventual joining of Ariel Sharon's coalition meant accomplishing one of Shinui's major goals--diminishing the role of haredi parties.
The party currently has no seats in the Knesset and Lapid's political career is uncertain.
As a Knesset member, Lapid was chairman of the Sub-Committee on Foreign Affairs. He served as the Justice Minister and deputy prime minister in Ariel Sharon's government, but resigned together with his party (becoming the Knesset's minority leader) in December 2004 when Sharon's government decided to extend additional financial help to Haredi institutions in Israel in exchange for having the Agudat Yisrael party in his coalition. However, in late March 2005 Lapid agreed to support Sharon's budget in exchange for minor concessions, not including the cancellation of the budget allocation to the Haredi institutions. Ultimately, Lapid chose to back down so as not to topple the government and cause early elections which would have impeded Sharon's plan (supported by most Shinui voters) to withdraw Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip.
Poraz was defeated as deputy leader of Shinui in a party primary held in January 2006 that elected a number of Lapid's opponents to the party's slate. Lapid himself was barely re-elected as party leader, running against a virtually unknown contender. Lapid resigned from the party two weeks later and later announced his support of Poraz's new party, Hetz. On July 2006, Lapid was appointed chairman of the Yad Vashem institution (Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority) by the Israeli government.
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| Pinchas Rosen (three times) • Dov Yosef (twice) • Haim Cohen • David Ben-Gurion • Yaakov Shimshon Shapiro (twice) • Golda Meir (twice) • Haim Yosef Tzadok • Menachem Begin • Shmuel Tamir • Moshe Nissim • Yitzchak Modai • Avraham Sharir • Dan Meridor • David Libai • Yaakov Neeman • Benjamin Netanyahu • Tzachi Hanegbi • Yossi Beilin • Meir Sheetrit (twice) • Yosef Lapid • Tzipi Livni (twice) • Haim Ramon • Daniel Friedmann |
