Mossi Raz

Mossi Raz was born in 1965 in Jerusalem

Raz was born in Jerusalem as Moshe Mizrahi, the eldest son of parents of Kurdish-Jewish origin. His parents later changed the family name to Raz. He attended the Maalot Dafna elementary school and then the Rene Cassin school.

He joined the IDF in 1984 and volunteered for the paratroopers, later becoming an infantry officer and a team commander in the Maglan unit. He studied economics and accounting at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he chaired the student union council.

Raz was secretary of the Meretz Knesset faction from 1991 to 1994 and secretary general of Peace Now from 1995 to 2000. He entered the Knesset in 2000 after Haim Oron resigned. There he passed a law giving environmental groups representation on planning committees.

Between his terms he co-founded the Israeli-Palestinian station All for Peace radio and served as its co-director. He chaired the environmental umbrella group Life and Environment and was secretary general of Meretz from 2015 to 2018.

He returned to the Knesset in 2017 after Zehava Gal-On resigned, and opposed the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda. He was elected again in 2021 and chaired a special Knesset committee. He lost his seat when Meretz failed to pass the threshold in 2022.