Sheffi Paz

Sheffi Paz was born in Lodz, Poland, on 18 June 1952. Her parents were Holocaust survivors, and in 1956, when she was four, the family emigrated to Israel. They lived at first in a transit camp in Kiryat Ata before settling in Holon, where she grew up. Her father worked as a bookkeeper. Her mother was killed in a road accident when Paz was 21.

As a teenager she was a member of the socialist Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair. She did her compulsory military service in the Technology and Maintenance Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, and studied for a bachelor's degree in history at Tel Aviv University.

By profession Paz was a translator, language editor and typesetter, and with her partner she ran a small typesetting business.

For most of her adult life she was an activist on the Israeli left. She was a member of Meretz for decades, demonstrated with Peace Now against the settlers of Elon Moreh at Sebastia, and took part in the 2011 social justice protests. She was active in the campaign for LGBT rights as a member of the lesbian feminist organisation Klaf, joined protest vigils outside the residence of President Ezer Weizman after his homophobic remarks, and stood with drag performers during the Wigstock clashes of 1998.

Around 1995 she and her partner moved from central Tel Aviv to the Shapira neighbourhood in the south of the city, which she said attracted them because of its diversity. She was friendly with migrant neighbours, and during the deportation drive of 2002 she hid a Nigerian neighbour in her home during an immigration police raid.

As the number of African asylum seekers and migrants in south Tel Aviv grew in the following decade, mainly people from Eritrea and Sudan, her position changed. From around 2012 she was a leading figure in the Otef Tachana Merkazit residents' organisation and headed its South Tel Aviv Liberation Front. She argued that the migrants' presence had brought crime and hardship to poorer Jewish residents and that it was tolerated only because the area was disadvantaged. In 2013 she stood sixth on the list of the Southern Faction in the Tel Aviv municipal elections; the list did not win a seat. In 2017 a crowdfunding campaign she launched raised about 500,000 shekels for the cause.

Her campaign was often confrontational. From August 2017 she led weekly protests outside the homes of Supreme Court presidents Miriam Naor and Esther Hayut, and she was arrested on many occasions. In 2019 she and bereaved mother Meirav Hajaj spray-painted slogans at the entrance of the European Union delegation's office, leading to charges in January 2020. In December 2020 she was indicted over a break-in at a preschool for migrant children. Haaretz profiled her in 2016 under the headline describing her as racist and proud, and human rights groups were sharply critical of her. In November 2024 she entered Neve Tirtza prison to serve a 45 day sentence after a vandalism conviction.

Paz came out as a lesbian in 1974, at the age of 22. At 29 she met her partner, Tali Rachlin-Paz, with whom she shared her life and business, and the couple arranged joint guardianship of the son Tali had given birth to. She was treated for Hodgkin lymphoma at 38 and later for breast cancer, and recovered both times.

In an interview with Israel National News in 2025 she spoke about the toll her activism took on her family, who worried for her safety. "There is an enormous gap between Sheffi within the family and the public figure," she said, adding that her son would have liked the family to leave the neighbourhood, but that she could not imagine leaving south Tel Aviv.

Sheffi Paz died on the morning of Monday 26 October 2026, aged 74. She had beaten cancer three times and had been diagnosed with it for a fourth time in the weeks before her death.

Her death was announced by the Otef Tachana Merkazit organisation and reported by The Times of Israel, Israel National News, Kan and Ynet. The organisation's deputy director Amalia Ozer and spokesman Yaakov Sela called her a courageous leader and a dear friend, and said the group would continue her campaign. Funeral arrangements had not been reported at the time of writing.

Paz remained a divisive figure to the end. To supporters in south Tel Aviv she was a tireless advocate for residents who felt ignored by the state, the city and the courts. To critics, including human rights organisations and many former allies on the left, her rhetoric and actions against asylum seekers were racist and at times unlawful. Her journey from Meretz member and LGBT rights campaigner to the best known face of the anti-migrant movement made her a frequent subject of Israeli press profiles and of the wider debate over Israel's treatment of African asylum seekers.