Avi Maoz

Avi Maoz was born in 1956 in Haifa

Maoz was born Avigdor Fischheimer in the Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood of Haifa. His mother Esther was a Holocaust survivor, and his father was Israel Fischheimer.

He joined the IDF in 1975. After his service he helped found Kibbutz Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion and served as its secretary. From 1980 to 1991 he studied at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva.

In the 1980s he worked with the Let My People Go campaign for Soviet Jews and for the release of Natan Sharansky. In the early 1990s he was among the heads of the Elad association. He later directed the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Construction and Housing, leaving in 2004.

Maoz became leader of Noam after its founding in 2019. The party promotes an Orthodox and socially conservative view of Israel's Jewish identity and opposes LGBT rights. He entered the Knesset in 2021 and later served twice as deputy minister in charge of Jewish national identity.

In 2026 the party ran as Noam BeYisrael but did not pass the electoral threshold, and Maoz lost his seat. He lives in Jerusalem, is married and has 10 children.