Sheffi Paz

In September 2019, Paz and bereaved mother Meirav Hajaj vandalised the entrance of office of the European Union delegation in Israel. They spray-painted slogans in red paint which read: “EU get out” and “German money kill Jews”. Paz admitted to the vandalism and handed herself over to police.

Since August 2017 Paz has led weekly demonstrations opposite the house of the former head of the Supreme Court of Israel, Miriam Naor, in Rehavia, Jerusalem, and outside the house of the current head Esther Hayut in Tzahala, north Tel Aviv. In November 2017 she was arrested during a protest that she led opposite the house of the head of the Supreme Court. According to Paz, in an ideal world she would be in favor of abolishing borders, nations, and religions, but according to her, "it's impossible, we need to survive, and I am a Zionist by the basic meaning of the word. We need our own country, and once it isn't, it's over. There are minorities here, so should we create more?"

In October 2017 Paz created a crowdfunding campaign in order to fund activism against illegal immigration, which raised about 500 thousand shekels.

In the municipal elections for Tel Aviv city council in 2013, Paz came in sixth place among candidates the "Southern Faction" party. The party won one seat and did not enter the city council.

Since 2012, Paz has had a significant role in the social movement against illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, as a member of the organization "Otef Tahana HaMerkazit". Paz led a branch of the organization, which calls itself the "South Tel Aviv Liberation Front". She documents crime and homelessness among the migrant population in the neighborhood through video. She takes interviews with the media, organizes protests and hangs signs with the goal of convincing the Israeli public that the migrant population in south Tel Aviv causes serious problems for the native residents. With this goal she has partnered with various right-wing Israeli organizations. She protests the migrants' use of public parks, schools, and other public resources. She frequently confronts human rights activists that advocate for migrants, claiming that they are violating the rights of the native, low socio-economic class residents, who feel abandoned by the state and city governments. Although she voted for Meretz for decades, her confrontations with the Israeli left have pushed her political views rightwards. In her words, "There is a growing group of former leftists who are bringing new energy to the right. Perhaps here we see the beginning of a new right-wing constituency, which will return the secular right to public consciousness."

After coming out, Paz became a left-wing activist and was a member of the Meretz party for decades. She demonstrated with Peace Now in Sebastia against the settlers of Elon Moreh, against Israeli settlements, and in the summer of 2011 she participated in the Israeli social justice protests. Paz was a lesbian activist for LGBT rights, and was a member of the feminist lesbian association Klaf. She participated in protest shifts outside of the house of then-president Ezer Weizman, after he made homophobic public statements, and she stood on the side of drag queens in the Israeli Wigstock riots of 1998.

Until 1995 she lived next to Habima Theatre. In 1996 she and her partner chose to move to the Shapira neighborhood in south Tel Aviv, because of its multicultural and diverse nature. In her words, she was friendly with members of the immigrant population, particularly with two Nigerian families in her building. In 2002, during a wave of deportations ordered by Ariel Sharon, she even hid a Nigerian migrant in her house when the immigration police were spread out in the area. However, as the number of migrants greatly increased in the neighborhood, particularly those from Eritrea, she began to oppose their presence in south Tel Aviv.

Sheffi Paz (born July 18, 1952) is an Israeli social activist, living in south Tel Aviv. In the past she was an activist in the Israeli political party Meretz, and since 2012 she has been one of the leaders in the movement against illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, and the concentration of these migrants in the old neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv.

Paz was born in Łódź, Poland in 1952 to holocaust survivor parents. At the age of four she made aliyah with her parents, and grew up in Holon, Israel. She participated in the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair. After the Six-Day War, when she was 15, she participated in protests in Tel Aviv supporting Israeli settlements. For her mandatory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces, she served in the Technology and Maintenance Corps. At age 22 she came out of the closet as a lesbian, and following this she changed her political affiliation, connecting to figures like Shulamit Aloni, Yael Dayan, and the Ratz party with an interest in protecting LGBT rights. She studied history at Tel Aviv University, and worked as a text and layout editor in the book publishing field. At age 29 she met her partner, and together they raised one son.