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
Shalem Center a $4.5 million grant to enable the creation of the "Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies" at the Shalem Center, to be headed by Natan Sharansky. The Institute closed in 2009, with the departure of Sharansky to head the Jewish Agency. In 2010, the Center announced a $5 million gift from the Chicago-based Conduit Foundation, headed by long-time Shalem trustee David Messer, to seed the establishment of Shalem College. Other significant supporters of Shalem College include the Klarman Family Foundation of Boston, George and Pamela Rohr of New York, Harvey and Jayne Beker of New York, Larry and Judy Tanenbaum of