Tzali Reshef

Tzali Reshef was born in 1953 in Israel

Betzalel "Tzali" Reshef was born on 23 June 1953 and grew up in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. He studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium Rehavia and finished in 1971. He served in Unit 8200 of the Intelligence Corps.

He earned a bachelor's degree in law and economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1978 and a master's degree in law from Harvard University in 1980. He interned with Supreme Court Justice Miriam Ben-Porat and at a New York law firm. He then became a partner in the Jerusalem law firm founded by his parents, working in commercial law and on human rights petitions.

In 1978 he drafted the Officers' Letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which led to the founding of Peace Now. He helped organize the September 1982 protest that led to the inquiry into the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In 1996 he wrote a book about the movement.

He rejoined the Labor Party after the 1993 Oslo Accords and in 1997 headed Ehud Barak's staff. He entered the Knesset in August 2002 in place of Ra'anan Cohen and left in 2003. He ran on the Meretz list in 2009, and in 2019 he founded the Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights.