Yosef Shagal

• Born — 25 March 1949 • Birthplace — Baku, Soviet Union • Suboffice1 — Yisrael Beiteinu • Office1 — Faction represented in the Knesset • Subterm1 — 2006–2009 • Native Name — יוסף שגל • Office — Ambassadors of Israel to Belarus • Term Start — 2012 • Term End — 2015

Born in Baku in the Soviet Union (today in Azerbaijan) of Mountain Jewish heritage, Shagal studied history at university. After gaining a BA, he began working as a journalist. He made aliyah to Israel in 1990, and worked as a reporter for Israel Plus, the country's Russian language station. Shagal joined Yisrael Beiteinu, a nationalist party dominated by immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in February 2006, just a month before the 2006 elections. Despite his late entry to politics, he won fourth spot on the party's list, and was elected to the Knesset when it won eleven seats. He lost his seat in the 2009 elections. Today he lives in Jerusalem and is married with two children. In 2008, Yosef Shagal, then retired Israeli parliamentarian, in an interview to Azerbaijani media stated: "I find it deeply offensive, and even blasphemous to compare the Holocaust of European Jewry during the Second World War with the mass extermination of the Armenian people during the First World War. Jews were killed because they were Jews, but Armenians provoked Turkey and should blame themselves."