Natan Sharansky also served as a contributing editor to "The Jerusalem Report" and as a Board member of Peace Watch. In 1995, Sharansky and Yoel Edelstein founded the Yisrael BaAliyah party (a play of words, since "aliya" means both Jewish emigration to Israel, and "rise", thus the party name means "(People of) Israel immigrating (to the State of Israel)", as well as "Israel on the rise"), promoting the absorption of the Soviet Jews into Israeli society. The party won seven Knesset seats in 1996. It won 6 seats in the Israeli legislative election, 1999, gaining two ministerial posts, but left the government
Natan Shalem Natan Shalem Natan Shalem (October 10, 1897 - 1959) was an Israeli geographer, geologist and researcher. Shalem was born in Thessaloniki to a traditional Jewish family. Growing up Shalem studied in various Jewish educational institutes. In 1914 Shalem immigrated to Ottoman Palestine. During the First World War Shalem began to teach in the moshava Sejera. In 1919 Shalem went to study geology in Florence where he obtained his doctorate in 1924. After getting his doctorate Shalem returned to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem, where he worked as a teacher for geography, chemistry and physics at the Gymnasia Rehavia. Within this