Rifaat Turk

Rifaat Turk was born in 1954 in Jaffa

Turk was born in 1954 in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa to Arab Israeli parents. His father was a fisherman, and he was the second of 8 children. He left school during the eighth grade.

At 16 he was noticed playing football on the beach and joined the Hapoel Tel Aviv youth team. He played for the senior team from 1972 and was named Israel's player of the year in 1980. He won the national championship with the club in 1981, played a loan season at Hapoel Ramat Gan, and finished his playing career at Hapoel Jerusalem in 1987.

He played 33 games for the national team from 1976 to 1986 and scored 3 goals. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal he played as a midfielder, the first Arab to represent Israel at the Games.

As a coach he led Hapoel Tel Aviv from 1989 to 1992, Hapoel Tayibe in 1997 and Maccabi Ahi Nazareth in 2015. He also worked as a television commentator on football.

A member of Meretz, he was elected to the Tel Aviv City Council in 1998 and became Deputy Mayor in 2003. In 2013 he played on the Israeli Peace Team, which toured the United States.