Silvan Shalom

Zion Silvan Shalom (, born 4 August 1958) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1992 and 2015. He held several prominent ministerial positions, including being Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. He resigned on 24 December 2015 following allegations of sexual harassment. Later on, the Attorney-General closed this investigation and said these claims were unsubstantiated. Early life Shalom was born in Gabès, Tunisia on 4 August 1958 to a family that traced its roots to the Sephardic Beit Shalom dynasty. His family moved to Israel in 1959, settling in the city of Beersheba in the Negev. On 3 November 1964, when Shalom was six years old, his father Shimon Shalom, a bank manager and a member of the Betar movement, was killed during the course of a bungled bank robbery. The murder was notoriously known as the first committed in a bank robbery in the history of the young State of Israel. At the age of 18, Shalom was inducted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and rose to the rank of sergeant. Education and early career After completing his service in the IDF, Shalom attended Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, from which he received a BA in economics and earned his certification as a Certified Public Accountant. During that time, Shalom was elected as the chairman of the university's students' union and later as the vice chairman of the national students union. He then studied law and public policy at Tel Aviv University. He received an LLB and was certified as a lawyer, and a received a Master's degree in public policy. Shalom began his career as a journalist. While working on his bachelor's degree, he wrote for Yedioth Aharonoth, a daily newspaper, in its students section. Afterwards he started working at the Rosh Berosh magazine and in the Negev's local newspaper. In 1980, he moved to Tel Aviv and started working at the now-defunct daily Hadashot. In 1984, he was appointed as its head political and economic correspondent.