Uriel Reichman

Uriel Reichman (; born 4 July 1942) is an Israeli legal scholar and former politician. In 1994 he established the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, later renamed Reichman University. He remained its president for 27 years and is currently chair of its board of directors. He also briefly served as a member of the Knesset in 2006 for Kadima.

Biography Uriel Reichman was born in Tel Aviv during the Mandate era to Gerda and Alfred who had fled Nazi Germany. After attending elementary school in Ramat Gan and Tichon Hadash high school in Tel Aviv, during which he was a member of the Scouts and Maccabi Ramat Gan football club, he started his national service in the Israel Defence Forces, serving in the Paratroopers Brigade and reaching the rank of lieutenant. earning an LLB in 1967 and an LLM in 1972. He was called up for reserve duty during the Six-Day War in 1967, the War of Attrition (1967–1970) and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, during which his brother Gad was killed. In 1994 he established the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Reichman retired from the presidency in 2021.

Reichman has served on the board of directors of the First International Bank and Bank Hapoalim. He also has chaired the Israel Bar Association's Committee for Human Rights, headed and served as a member of several public committees, and proposed reforms in the real-estate laws and in the professions of real-estate surveying and brokerage.

Political career A founder of Shinui, Reichman was elected to head the party's presidium in 2004. However, in November 2005 he left the party to join Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party. For the 2006 elections he was placed eleventh on Kadima's list, and became a Knesset member when the party won 29 seats. However, he resigned his seat on 28 April 2006 in protest at not being given the Education portfolio (which went to Yuli Tamir of the Labor Party), which he claimed he had been promised by both Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. He was replaced by Shai Hermesh.

Awards and recognitions In 2000 Reichman was made a "Knight of Quality Government" by the Movement for Quality Government. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Heinrich Heine University in 2010. In 2015 he received the annual Israel Bar Association prize. In 2018 Reichman was given the Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Public Diplomacy Award by the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University.