Yossi Sarid, Yahad

Yossi Sarid has been a Knesset member since 1974 and has been one of Israel's leading left-wing politicians over a political career spanning four decades.

In 1965 Sarid served as an advisor to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol.

Sarid was elected to the Knesset for the first time in 1974, as a member of Labor, but in 1988 he left for the left-wing Meretz party. 

Sarid served as Minister of Environment (1993-1996) in the Rabin and Peres governments and Minister of Education (1999-2000) in the Barak government.

From 1996-2003, Sarid was Meretz party chairman. In 2003 Meretz merged with the Shachar movement to create Yahad, and then formed an alliance with the Democratic Choice faction. Yossi Beilin was elected Yahad chairman.

Sarid has a master's degree in political science from the New School for Social Research, New York.

He was born in 1940 in Rehovot and is married with three children.