Gideon Sa'ar is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the political party Likud between 2003 and 2014.
Background
Gideon Moses Zarechansky (later Sa'ar) was born in Tel Aviv. His mother, Bruriah, is of Bukharian Jewish descent while his father, Shmuel, immigrated to Israel from Argentina in the mid-1960s, settled in Sde Boker and became the personal physician of David Ben-Gurion.
Education
After serving in the Israel Defense Forces, Sa'ar studied political science at Tel Aviv University and then went on to study law at the same institution.
Career
He also held the posts of Minister of the Interior and Education Minister. He worked as an aide to the Attorney General between 1995 and 1997, and then as an aide to the State Attorney until 1998. He was opposed to Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, and attempted to pass a bill demanding a referendum on the subject.
After retaining his seat in the 2006 elections he was reappointed Group Chairman and also became a deputy Knesset speaker. While in the Knesset, Sa'ar proposed bills to jail employers who fire pregnant women, (he chaired the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women) and to ban cosmetics testing on animals. He retained his seat, and was appointed Minister of Education on 31 March.
In 2012, he again gained the most votes in Likud primaries, and entered the 19th Knesset. In September 2014, Sa'ar announced that he would be resigning his post before the next election. On 17 September, he took a hiatus from politics.
He left the Knesset on 5 November, and was replaced by Leon Litinetski.
Membership
He said he would still remain a member of the Likud.