A foundation dedicated to assisting new immigrants to Israel and protecting the environment has been established in memory of Yuri Shtern. The former Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset Member passed away in January 2007, at the age of 58, following a long battle 
Shtern was influential in bringing thousands of "refuseniks" to the Jewish State.
with cancer.
A Zionist activist in Moscow during the dark days of the Soviet Union, Shtern immigrated to Israel in 1981. He eventually served in the Knesset as a representative of two parties, the now-defunct Yisrael B'Aliyah, headed by Natan Sharansky, and then Yisrael Beiteinu, under Avigdor Lieberman. Shtern later founded and served as the spokesman for the Soviet Jewry Education and Information Center, the Council of Immigrants Association and the Soviet Jewry Zionist Forum.
With the aid of Jews and Christians worldwide, Shtern was influential in bringing thousands of "refuseniks" (those Jews denied emigration rights in the former Soviet Union) to the Jewish State.
Shtern was hailed by Christian supporters of the Jewish State for his founding of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus in 2004, which works to create formal lines of communication between international Christian leaders and Israeli parliamentarians.
The Yuri Shtern Foundation's first four major projects will include:
* a $2,000 annual scholarship fund, established in conjunction with the Jewish Agency, for 500 outstanding immigrant students who made Aliyah without their families;
* the Yuri Shtern Holistic Center for Cancer Patients at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Hospital. The treatments, provided by volunteer therapists in Jerusalem free of charge, will allow patients of all socio-economic backgrounds to benefit equally;
* the establishment of an environmental promenade on the shores of Lake Kinneret, as part of the Kinneret Trail project; and
* the construction of a ecologically-sensitive community park in the Jerusalem neighborhood of N'vei Yaakov.