Efraim Gur is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i former politician who served as a member of the Knesset

Knesset

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

 between 1988 and 1996, and as Deputy Minister of Communications

Communications Minister of Israel

The Communications Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Communications and a relatively minor position in the Israeli cabinet. The post was established in 1952, and until 1970 was known as the Minister of Postal Services...

 and Deputy Minister of Transportation in the early 1990s.

Biography

Born Efraim Gorlishvili in Kulashi

Kulashi

Kulashi is a townlet in Imereti, Georgia with the population of around 2,000 as of 2002. It is located 5 km from the town of Samtredia. It first appears in the 16th century records as a fief of the Mikeladze family. It was granted the status of daba in 1961...

 in the Georgian SSR of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in 1955, Gur made aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 to Israel in 1972, and worked as an insurance agent. He joined the Labor Party, becoming secretary of its Ashdod branch. He also served as deputy mayor of the city and as chair of the Ashdod Zionist Council.

In 1988

Israeli legislative election, 1988

Elections for the twelfth Knesset were held in Israel on 1 November 1988. Voter turnout was 79.7%.-Results:1 Five members of the Likud left to form the Party for the Advancement of the Zionist Idea; after two returned, the party was renamed the New Liberal Party...

 he was elected to the Knesset on the Alignment

Alignment (political party)

The Alignment was an alliance of the major left-wing parties in Israel between the 1960s and 1990s. It was established in 1965 as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda but was dissolved three years later when the two parties and Rafi formally merged into the Israeli Labor Party...

 list (of which the Labor Party was the major component. However, following the dirty trick

The dirty trick (Israel)

The dirty trick refers to a political scandal that erupted in Israel in 1990. It consisted of an attempt by Shimon Peres to form a narrow government made up of the left-wing factions and the ultra-orthodox parties...

 incident in 1990, he left the party to establish Unity for Peace and Immigration

Unity for Peace and Immigration

Unity for Peace and Immigration was a short-lived one man political faction in Israel in the early 1990s.-Background:The faction was formed when Efraim Gur broke away from the Alignment in 1990, during the term of the 12th Knesset. Gur was invited to join Yitzhak Shamir's new government which had...

, and joined Yitzhak Shamir

Yitzhak Shamir

' is a former Israeli politician, the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, in 1983–84 and 1986–92.-Biography:Icchak Jeziernicky was born in Ruzhany , Russian Empire . He studied at a Hebrew High School in Białystok, Poland. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement...

's Likud

Likud

Likud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...

-led government. He was rewarded by being appointed Deputy Minister of Communications on 2 July, before becoming Deputy Minister of Transportation on 20 November.

Shortly before the 1992 elections

Israeli legislative election, 1992

Elections for the thirteenth Knesset were held in Israel on 23 June 1992. The result was a victory for the left, led by Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party, though their win was at least partially due to several small right-wing parties narrowly failing to cross the electoral threshold and thus effectively...

 Gur merged his faction into Likud, and was re-elected. On 7 March 1996 he left Likud and sat out the remainder of the term as an independent. He re-established his party to run in the May elections

Israeli legislative election, 1996

Elections for the fourteenth Knesset were held in Israel on 29 May 1996. Voter turnout was 79.3%.The 1996 elections included two new changes, both designed to increase the stability of the Knesset. First, the Prime Minister was to be elected on a separate ballot from the remaining members of the...

, renaming it Unity for the Defence of New Immigrants. However, it failed to cross the electoral threshold and he lost his seat.

He has served as chairman of the Union of Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union.

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