Ophir Pines-Paz

Ophir Pines-Paz was born in 1961 in Rishon LeZion

Pines-Paz was born in Rishon LeZion, the eldest of three children. His father Yehuda, born in the Netherlands, was an optician and technologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and survived the Holocaust. His mother Ruth was a painter.

He attended the Hebrew Reali Gymnasium in Rishon LeZion and served in the IDF from 1979 to 1982. He earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the Hebrew University and a master's degree in public policy from Tel Aviv University.

From 1993 to 1996 he chaired the Authority for Rehabilitation of Prisoners. He entered the Knesset in 1996, chaired the coalition from 1999 and was Labor's general secretary from 2001 to 2003. He became Minister of Internal Affairs in 2005 and Minister of Science, Culture and Sport in 2006, resigning in protest when Yisrael Beiteinu joined the coalition.

In January 2010 he left the Knesset and politics. In 2012 he founded the Institute for Local Government at Tel Aviv University and has headed it since. He is married with two children and lives in Ra'anana.