Uri Lupolianski

Biography

Born in Haifa, Israel in 1951, Lupolianski studied at the Yavne School in Haifa and then attended Yeshivat Hanegev. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a paramedic and worked as a teacher at a religious school in Jerusalem. Lupolianski is married to Michal Lupolianski (Schneller), granddaughter of Rabbi Isaac Breuer. They have 12 children.

Political career

Lupolianski was Deputy Mayor, chairperson of the Planning and Building Committee and responsible for the Family Services and Community portfolio. He was a member of the National Building and Planning Committee and the Committee for the Development of Holy Places. Lupolianski is a member of the Degel Hatorah party which ran for elections together with Agudat Israel in a united party called United Torah Judaism. In the 2003 municipal election, Lupolianski ran for mayor under the United Torah Judaism ticket. This was part of a rotation deal which stated that in the next election, the ticket would nominate a candidate from Agudat Israel. He was elected on June 6, 2003, after serving on the Jerusalem City Council from 1989.

Mayoral term

To attract students to Jerusalem's institutions of higher education, Lupolianski inaugurated the "Lupolianski Package" which offers special tuition and housing subsidies to university students renting apartments in the city center. Hi-tech workers who choose to live and work in Jerusalem are also eligible for a monthly grant to cover part of their living expenses. Lupolianski was accused of preferring Jews for civil service over Arabs, and of basing municipal decisions on his religious views. During his tenure as mayor, Lupolianski clashed with the Israeli gay and lesbian community for trying to stop or change the venue of their annual Gay pride parade in Jerusalem.

Yad Sarah

In 1976, Lupolianski founded the Yad Sarah organization to help the elderly and disabled. The organization is named for his Polish grandmother, who died in the Holocaust. It lends out medical equipment and supplies a variety of services to the sick, elderly and lonely. Yad Sarah has a network of 6,000 volunteers working out of 96 branches, and serves all sectors of the population.

Awards

Before becoming mayor, Lupolianski won the President's Volunteer Prize, the Knesset Speaker's Award and the Kaplan Prize for Efficiency. In 1994, he accepted the Israel Prize on behalf of Yad Sarah.

Holyland case

On January 5, 2011, he was indicted with 17 others for allegedly giving or receiving bribes to advance various real estate ventures, particularly the Holyland development. However, unlike the others in the case, Lupolianski never received any money himself. Rather, the money was sent to a Jerusalem charity that assists poor people in the city. In March 2014, he was found guilty of corruption.