 Ranan Lurie's father, Joseph, born in 1906, was one of the first Jerusalem babies born outside the walls of the old city, in the new neighborhood of "Yemin Moshe".The grandfather Isaiah, petrified by the thought that he would be recruited into the Turkish army during the First World War, to be sent to Gallipoli, utilized his French citizenship and fled to Egypt where he became the president of the Ashkenazi Jewish community.In 1947, Lurie was appointed member of Israel's National Youth Handball team.