Matty Stern / U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv · CC BY 2.0

Rose from a working-class immigrant family from Morocco to become Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and in doing so became a central figure in the political mobilization of Mizrahi Jews — voters of Middle Eastern and North African descent who had long felt sidelined by Israel's Ashkenazi-dominated establishment. Over a 37-year Knesset career he held the housing, immigrant absorption, and foreign affairs portfolios and later broke from Likud to lead his own Gesher faction into Ehud Barak's governing coalition.