Sofi Tsedaka

Sofi Tsedaka was born in 1975 in Holon

Tsedaka was born in 1975 in Holon and grew up in the Samaritan neighborhood of Neve Pinchas. Her father was Baruch Tsedaka, and her brother is the actor Neri Tsedaka. Samaritan women are exempt from IDF service, so she did national service in a hospital.

At 18, in 1993, she left her parents' home for Tel Aviv and later went through an Orthodox conversion to Judaism, taking the added name Sarah. She married Roni Azran, and they had a daughter in 1997 before divorcing in 2002. She also has a son, born in 2011.

She studied acting at the Yoram Loewenstein school but did not finish, since she had already begun working. She later studied screenwriting, directing and editing at Hasifa, the media arts school of the Open University.

In 2000 she co-hosted the game show The Vault with Erez Tal on Channel 2. She then played Rona in the telenovela Lehayey Ha'ahava and won a Golden Screen award for the role in 2002. She hosted on the Children's Channel, appeared at the Festigal, starred in children's shows and voiced Ella in the Hebrew dub of Ella Enchanted.

In 2006 she ran for the Knesset with The Greens but was not elected. Her debut album, Bereshet, based on Samaritan hymns and prayers, came out in 2007. In 2014 she formed the band Sofi Tsedaka and the Ballads, and in 2017 she produced a documentary about leaving the Samaritan community.