Uri Lupoliansky

Uri Lupolianski (; 29 August 1951 – 7 January 2026) was an Israeli politician who served as the mayor of Jerusalem from 2003 to 2008 and was the founder of Yad Sarah.

Background Born 29 August 1951 in Haifa, Israel, Lupolianski studied at the Yavne School in Haifa and then attended Yeshivat Hanegev and Yeshivat Torah Ore. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a paramedic and worked as a teacher at a religious school in Jerusalem. Lupolianski was married to Michal Lupolianski (Schneller), granddaughter of Rabbi Isaac Breuer. They had 12 children.

Lupolianski died on 7 January 2026, at the age of 74.

Yad Sarah In 1976, Lupolianski founded the Yad Sarah organization to help the elderly and disabled. The organization is named after his Polish grandmother, who was killed 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. 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.

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 5 January 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.