Carmel Shama

Carmel Shama was born in 1973 in Ramat Gan

Shama was born in Ramat Gan and grew up in the Ramat HaShikma neighborhood. His parents' families came from Iraq on one side and from Syria and Turkey on the other. He is the eldest of 7 children.

He earned a law degree from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and is also a certified real estate appraiser. In 2010 he added Hacohen to his surname to stress that he is Jewish, after many people wrongly thought he was Druze.

He chaired the Likud youth council and, from 2002, the party's Ramat Gan branch. In 2003 he was elected to the Ramat Gan city council, where he worked on environmental issues and led the audit committee in a public fight against mayor Zvi Bar.

He entered the Knesset in 2009, served as deputy speaker, and in 2010 became chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee. He lost his seat in 2013, returned in 2014, and resigned that year to become envoy to the OECD and UNESCO. In December 2017 he submitted Israel's request to leave UNESCO.

In 2018 he defeated incumbent Yisrael Zinger in a runoff and became mayor of Ramat Gan. He later headed the election campaign of Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party. He is married to Vered and has 3 sons and a daughter.