Former MK, Israel Prize winner Eli Alaluf dies at 80

Immigrant from Morocco entered politics in 2015 as a member of Kulanu after a career spent fighting poverty, for which he was awarded the country’s top prize in 2011

Israel Prize winner and former Knesset member Eli Alaluf, who was in the parliament between 2015 and 2019, died on Sunday at the age of 80.

Alaluf is survived by his wife and their son.

He served as a member of the 20th Knesset for the now-defunct Kulanu party, having entered national politics after a career working for poverty-fighting organizations.

Alaluf also served a brief, three-year stint on the Beersheba City Council between 1989 and 1992.

Born in Morocco in 1945, Alaluf immigrated to Israel in 1967 and obtained a degree in political science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While working toward his degree, Alaluf was appointed the director of the French-speaking youth division of the World Zionist Organization, a position he held until 1978.

He then took a job in the office of then-minister Yigal Yadin, working together with the Jewish Agency to identify and rehabilitate underprivileged neighborhoods in Israel.

Following his work in the Beersheba City Council, Alaluf spent three years in Switzerland as an emissary for Keren Hayesod, before returning to Israel and being appointed director of the Rashi Foundation, an independent private philanthropic organization.

His work for the foundation, where he remained until 2012, was recognized in 2011 when he was awarded the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and contribution to the state.

In 2013, Alaluf headed up the newly formed Committee for the Fight Against Poverty in Israel.

Then-social affairs minister Meir Cohen (R) and Eli Alaluf, head of the Committee for the Fight Against Poverty in Israel, are seen at a press conference at the Social Affairs Ministry, in Jerusalem on October 06, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

He entered the political sphere in the run-up to the 2014 elections, when he announced that he was joining the centrist Kulanu party, led by Moshe Kahlon. He was placed third on the slate. The party ended up winning 10 seats in the election, making it the fifth-largest party in the Knesset.

He announced in 2018 that he would not be seeking a second term and did not run again in the 2019 elections.

Alaluf was remembered by President Isaac Herzog on Sunday as “a man of vision and action,” who “dedicated his life to the fight against poverty, to reducing disparities, and to strengthening solidarity in Israeli society, out of a deep belief in human dignity and the responsibility of the state to reach out to those in need.”