Vladimir Beliak

Vladimir Beliak was born on 16 August 1973 in Siberia, then part of the Soviet Union.[2][3] He grew up in Kemerovo, Russia, and immigrated to Israel in 1998 at the age of 25.[1] He is trained as both an accountant and a jurist, and prior to his election to the Knesset he worked as a senior partner and head of an accounting firm, having been self-employed for approximately 15 years.[6][3] He resides in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut and is married with two children.[2]

Beliak joined Yesh Atid a few months after Yair Lapid founded the party in 2012.[1] Within the party he established the Yesh Atid Small Business Forum in 2016 and drafted the party's platform on small businesses.[6] He stood as the 15th candidate on Yesh Atid's list for the March 2021 election to the 24th Knesset and was elected to that parliament.[4] During the 24th Knesset he chaired two caucuses: the Caucus for Self-Employed Individuals and Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in Israel, and the Caucus for Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Their Descendants.[1] He also served as the coalition coordinator on the Finance Committee, where he and committee chair Alex Kushnir worked to keep the coalition's eight parties aligned during consideration of the Economic Arrangements Law. Beliak said the committee was not following the Finance Ministry blindly and that, although he listened to lobbyists, he made substantive decisions.[7]

Beliak was reelected in the November 2022 election to the 25th Knesset, when Yesh Atid won 24 seats, 847,145 votes, and 17.78% of the vote.[8][2] In the 25th Knesset he served as an opposition lawmaker and as a member of the Finance Committee and the Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs.[1] By May 2025 he was acting chair of the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee.[9]

Ahead of the 2026 election, Beliak was placed seventh on Yesh Atid's announced list and subsequently placed 16th on the joint B'Yachad slate formed in April 2026 when Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid merged their parties.[10][5]

One legislative achievement Beliak highlighted was a law, passed alongside MKs Gilad Kariv and Yitzhak Kroizer, that significantly increased financial support for hostages returned from captivity in Gaza.[1] The legislation raised the monthly payment for returned hostages from 1,300 shekels to 9,000 shekels for life, added a one-time grant of 60,000 shekels, and established eligibility for disability recognition and related benefits.[1] Beliak said the issue came into focus after the November 2023 hostage-release deal, when he learned that released women and children were receiving only 1,300 shekels a month.[1]

On the Finance Committee, Beliak described helping to raise the wartime compensation budget for small businesses and local chains from 4.5 billion shekels to 17 billion shekels. He noted that many businesses had not recovered from COVID-19 when the war began and that some people in northern Israel had still not returned to full-time work between rounds of fighting.[1] He also sponsored a private bill on platform-economy work — addressing delivery couriers and similar workers — that aimed to preserve flexible self-employed arrangements while establishing protections including a minimum wage, a 12-hour daily work limit, advance notice, a hearing before termination of an engagement, and protection against harassment and discrimination.[11]

As a member and acting chair of the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, Beliak worked to prevent cuts to programs for immigrant students and initiated a committee hearing on the difficulties faced by immigrant teenagers following the death of 14-year-old Vladimir Khodyentov of Nof Hagalil after a prolonged period of bullying.[1][12] In May 2025 he chaired an emergency committee discussion on telephone scams targeting elderly people, new immigrants, and Holocaust survivors — particularly Russian speakers — and called for an inter-ministerial task force to address the problem.[9] He cited 70 million shekels in reported damage from such scams in 2022 and 2,000 recorded fraud cases involving elderly people, a quarter of whose victims were Russian speakers.[9]

Beliak co-sponsored legislation addressing dairy-product price increases and price rises during wartime, presented at a joint Finance and Economic Affairs Committee discussion in May 2025.[13] On budget oversight, he objected as opposition coordinator on the Finance Committee to what he described as repeated, legally questionable budget changes and the transfer of funds to religious institutions, alleging that Finance Ministry officials had initially misrepresented the funding source for religious-institution construction oversight.[14]

Beliak has argued that a future Israeli government should be a broad national Zionist coalition and that Arab parties and Haredi factions should not be part of it.[1] He views the next election as likely to turn on questions including a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, the cost of living, education, and societal rehabilitation.[1]

On regional affairs, Beliak has said that discussing a Palestinian state is not useful in the foreseeable future and that Israel should instead focus on security and regional alliances, including possible ties with Saudi Arabia and expansion of the Abraham Accords.[1]

In August 2021, during a Knesset speech in which Beliak discussed Olympic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat's gold medal and the position of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Shas MK Moshe Abutbul called out "Get some vodka" from the floor; other opposition members were reported to have joined in chanting "Vodka, vodka."[15] Beliak responded: "We are good enough to work, serve, pay taxes, bring medals and pride to the country, but still not kosher enough for the lords of the land."[15] The remarks drew condemnations from other politicians and were characterized as racist.[16][15] Abutbul subsequently said he had shouted "vodka" in reference to the budget and proposed taxation, denying any ethnic intent, while Beliak said he expected an apology.[16]

In September 2024, MK Limor Son Har-Melech of Otzma Yehudit filed an ethics complaint against Beliak over remarks he reportedly made during a Finance Committee discussion on 17 September, in which he referred to her party as "neo-Nazi." Beliak responded by characterizing the party as "neo-fascist" and defending his criticism. The report did not include an Ethics Committee ruling.[17]