Yair Lapid

Yair Lapid (יָאִיר לַפִּיד, ; born 5 November 1963) is an Israeli politician of the centrist Yesh Atid party, and a former journalist.

He has been the Leader of the Opposition since January 2023, having previously served in that role from 2020 to 2021.

He served as the 14th Prime Minister of Israel from 1 July to 29 December 2022.

He previously served as the Alternate Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2021 to 2022.

In the mid-1980s, Lapid married Tamar Friedman.

Another sister, Michal, died in a car accident in 1984.

His paternal grandfather Bela (Meir) Lampel, a lawyer and Zionist activist, was murdered in Mauthausen concentration camp, while his great-grandmother Hermione Lampel was sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in a gas chamber.

Lapid grew up in Tel Aviv and London.

His childhood home in Tel Aviv was in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood, in a residential building known as the Journalists' Residence, as several prominent journalists lived there.

He attended high school at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, but struggled with learning disabilities and dropped out without earning a bagrut certificate.

Lapid spent most of his mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces as a military correspondent for the IDF's weekly newspaper, Bamahane ("In the base camp").

He has given different versions of how he began his service in the IDF before being transferred to Bamahane, alternatively claiming to have begun his service in the Armored Corps until he was transferred after suffering an asthma attack due to a smoke grenade and to have started his service in the Israeli Air Defense Command before being pulled out due to suffering an asthma attack from dust and haze during basic training.

After completing his military service, he began working as a reporter for Maariv and published poetry in literary journals.

He also had a career as an amateur boxer.

The marriage produced one son, Yoav (born 1987).

The couple divorced after the birth of their son.

He later married Lihi Lapid, with whom he has two children.

The couple lives in the Ramat Aviv Gimel neighborhood of Tel Aviv.

He attends the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism, a Reform synagogue in Tel Aviv.

In 1988, at age 25, Lapid was appointed editor of Yedioth Tel Aviv, a local newspaper published by the Yedioth Ahronoth group.

In 1991, he began writing a weekly column in a nationwide newspaper's weekend supplement—first for Maariv, and later for its competitor, Yedioth Ahronoth.

Before entering politics in 2012, Lapid was an author, TV presenter and news anchor.

He served as Minister of Finance from 2013 to 2014.

Lapid is the chairman of Yesh Atid.

The centrist Yesh Atid party, which he founded, became the second-largest party in the Knesset by winning 19 seats in its first legislative election in 2013.

The greater-than-anticipated results contributed to Lapid's reputation as a leading centrist.

From 2013 to 2014, following his coalition agreement with Likud, Lapid served as Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In 2013, Lapid ranked first on the list of the "Most Influential Jews in the World" by The Jerusalem Post.

He was also recognized in 2013 as one of the leading Foreign Policy Global Thinkers, and ranked as one of Time magazine's 100 "Most Influential People in the World".

He serves on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and the Sub-Committee on Intelligence and the Security Services.

On 17 May 2020, Lapid became the Leader of the Opposition, after the thirty-fifth government of Israel was sworn in.

On 5 May 2021, he began talks with other parties to try to form a coalition government.

On 2 June 2021, Lapid informed Israeli President Reuven Rivlin that he had agreed to a rotation government with Naftali Bennett and was prepared to replace the incumbent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The new government was sworn in on 13 June 2021.

Lapid became the Prime Minister of Israel on 1 July 2022 after Bennett stepped down as prime minister following the dissolution of the Knesset.

Lapid remained prime minister until a new government was formed after the November 2022 election.

Yair Lapid was born in Tel Aviv, the son of journalist and politician Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, who served as Justice Minister, and novelist and playwright Shulamit (Giladi) Lapid.

His father was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to Hungarian Jewish parents, and his mother was born in Tel Aviv.

His maternal grandfather David Giladi, originally from Transylvania (now Romania), was a writer and journalist who was among the founders of the newspaper Maariv.

He has a sister, Merav, who is a clinical psychologist.