The MP for Bury South has been given the role of Shadow Secretary for International Development in the Shadow Cabinet shake-up.
Ivan Lewis, who is Jewish and a former vice-chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, has spent the past year as the Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport.
He has been in office since 1997 and as of the last election he held a 3,292 majority.
Under Gordon Brown he served as a Foreign Office minister.
Mr Lewis is a trustee of the Holocaust Education Trust.
In his previous portfolio Mr Lewis faced criticism for his suggestion, made at the Labour Party conference, that there should be some kind of official register of journalists.
The reshuffle came about following the resignation of John Denham, who held the Shadow Business Secretary position. John Healey, the Shadow Health Secretary also said he would be stepping down.
Mr Lewis wrote on Twitter that he was delighted to be returning to the development role.
"My time there was one of my most satisfying in [Government]," he said, adding that he was proud of his record in the Culture, Media and Sport post, where he confronted "the hacking scandal".