18 Facts About Yossi Beilin

Joseph "Yossi" Beilin is an Israeli politician who has served in multiple ministerial and leadership positions in the Israeli government.

Yossi Beilin served as chairman of the Meretz-Yachad political party.

Yossi Beilin writes opinion pieces in Israeli papers Haaretz and Israel Hayom.

Yossi Beilin was raised in Tel Aviv in a liberal household.

In 1969 Yossi Beilin began his career as a journalist for the newspaper Davar and in 1977 entered the political arena as a spokesperson for the Labour Party.

In 1988 Yossi Beilin was elected to the Knesset by the Labour Party.

Yossi Beilin was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance, a position he held until the dissolution of the National Unity Government in 1990.

Since 2018, Yossi Beilin is the Chairman of Hillel Student Organization in Israel.

Secretly, without informing his superiors, Yossi Beilin began the Oslo Process, a critical agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinians that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza.

At that time Yossi Beilin was interested in strengthening Israel's relations with world Jewry and American Jews in particular.

Yossi Beilin initiated the process that led to the establishment of the Birthright Program in 1999.

Yossi Beilin served for a short time as Minister of Religious Affairs.

On October 28,2008, prior to the eighteenth elections, Yossi Beilin announced his retirement from political life.

Yossi Beilin issued a condolence message on the death of Yasser Arafat, as well as proposals to transfer the ownership of the Shebah Farms to Lebanon and pardon Marwan Barghouti.

Yossi Beilin is agnostic but finds being Jewish central to his identity.

Yossi Beilin is a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which advocates for democratic reformation of the United Nations.

In 2016, Yossi Beilin made headlines by criticizing the legacy of Benjamin Ben-Eliezer shortly after his death, calling him "an aggressive, destructive politician".

Yossi Beilin was a visiting Professor in NYU during the Spring Semester 2020.