Stav Shaffir

Shaffir was born in Netanya on May 17, 1985, to a teacher and an accountant.[1] Her involvement in journalism began during childhood, when she wrote for the children’s newspaper Kolenu.[1] Before entering the army, she completed a year of voluntary service with a Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel group in Tiberias.[1] She enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in July 2004 and began pilot training, but was dismissed from the course after four months.[1] She subsequently served as a military journalist at the army weekly Bamahane, covering subjects that included the disengagement and the Second Lebanon War.[1]

After her military service, Shaffir studied journalism at City University in London through the Olive Tree Scholarship Programme, an initiative for Israeli and Palestinian future leaders.[4] Her studies in London included sociology as well as journalism.[5] She interned at the British Parliament and earned a bachelor’s degree in 2009.[4] On returning to Israel, she worked as a freelance journalist and wrote for websites while continuing her education at Tel Aviv University.[5][4] Her graduate studies concerned history and philosophy at the university’s Cohn Institute for Philosophy and History of Science and Ideas.[5][7]

Before entering politics, Shaffir wrote about travel destinations in Israel and hitchhiking around Europe on a limited budget.[8] She was working as an editor at Xnet when the social protest movement emerged in 2011.[5] A contemporary biographical note also identified her as a musician, alongside her work in journalism and her graduate studies.[7]

In July 2011, Shaffir wrote about protest organizer Daphni Leef as a tent encampment was taking shape on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard; within two months, she had become one of the movement’s leaders.[8] She helped organize tent cities and became a spokeswoman for economically struggling and politically disenfranchised Israelis, drawing on her experience as a journalist.[4] Alongside Itzik Shmuli and other organizers, she belonged to a small group of leaders associated with protests against high housing costs, inadequate public services, and income inequality.[3] The movement spread beyond Rothschild Boulevard to 120 tent cities around the country, with the cost of living—and housing prices in particular—at the center of its demands.[9]

In her own account of the movement’s beginnings, Shaffir recalled that a friend named Yonatan invited her in early July to take part in an initiative against high housing costs in Tel Aviv.[7] She wrote that, about two weeks later, the organizers pitched tents on Rothschild Boulevard to demonstrate that they could not afford rent.[7] Shaffir recalled that police ordered the demonstration canceled because the organizers lacked a permit, and that the order helped attract media attention.[7] In her description, journalists initially outnumbered demonstrators, but thousands of people arrived within hours and thousands more came the following day.[7]

Shaffir described the slogan “The People Demand Social Justice” as a shared expression of what participants wanted their country to become, even though different protesters understood it differently.[7] She presented the movement’s strategy as keeping its immediate cause simple—housing—and adhering to nonviolence so that participants could cooperate despite ideological differences.[7] In another recollection, she described visiting an encampment in a poor neighborhood whose residents included families who had waited a long time for housing benefits.[7] She wrote that residents initially told her she did not represent them, but that they talked through the night; after they asked for wood to build safer cabins for their children, she and volunteers returned three days later with wood and tools to help build them.[7]

The protests drew more than 400,000 people onto the streets.[3] The introduction to a contemporary Jewish Review of Books symposium estimated that as many as 450,000 marched across Israel on September 3, and described the establishment of a commission chaired by Manuel Trajtenberg that produced a series of proposals.[7] At a conference marking a year since the protests began, Shaffir called the Israeli movement “the most organized” compared with protests elsewhere and emphasized that it had long-term demands.[10] She added that “it was clear the change would not come quickly,” addressing a gathering of more than 200 businesspeople, philanthropists, government representatives, and nonprofit directors.[10] By January 2013, she had also founded Hatnua Hachevratit, a movement intended to promote young leadership.[11]

Shaffir entered the January 2013 election in eighth place on the Labor Party list, which won 15 seats.[12] At 27, she became the youngest woman ever elected to the Knesset and the youngest member of the 19th Knesset.[4][11] She sought a place on the Finance Committee because she regarded its work as a way to follow through on the demands of the Rothschild Boulevard protests, despite the committee’s reputation for tedious proceedings.[5] Her parliamentary activity became closely associated with questioning transfers between government departments, particularly transfers that had not received a full Knesset vote.[5]

Shaffir said she had initially expected legislation to be her principal task as a member of Knesset, but came to believe that lasting change required altering the mechanisms of government.[8] She argued that transfers approved after the main budget vote could leave the resulting budget substantially different from the one the Knesset had authorized.[8] In October 2014, a guard dragged her out of a Finance Committee meeting after she objected to a proposed transfer that she said lacked a full Knesset vote.[8] Her approach combined committee interventions with efforts to make budget documents accessible to people outside parliament.[5]

Recalling her first post-budget committee meeting in 2013, Shaffir described encountering a thick volume of transfer tables and noticing an item cutting NIS 1.5 billion from National Insurance.[5] She said lawmakers were approving transfers automatically, sometimes without attending the proceedings.[5] After being told that the Finance Ministry could not email her the material, she recruited volunteers to review it.[5] In her account, 120 people joined within 24 hours, ranging from a high-school student to a retired Finance Ministry employee.[5] She said that five days of work identified transfers to religious institutions and cuts affecting residents of the Gaza border area, which she then raised in committee.[5]

In a 2015 interview, Shaffir said she pursued concerns about budget transfers through the Knesset’s legal authorities, the state comptroller, and ultimately the Supreme Court.[13] She put the state budget at approximately NIS 320 billion and described about 87 percent as effectively fixed, leaving 13 percent discretionary.[13] Her investigation identified more than NIS 40 billion in reallocations to special-interest groups and other organizations.[4] Among the examples she criticized were a reported NIS 1.5 billion transfer from the National Insurance Institute to the Defense Ministry and funds directed to the Settlement Division.[13] She characterized insufficiently scrutinized transfers as a means of enabling unfair or corrupt allocations.[13]

Shaffir later recounted a 13-hour Finance Committee filibuster over a clause in a two-year budget law that she said would remove committee oversight of spending.[5] She described NIS 400 billion as being at stake and said she began broadcasting on Facebook Live after the committee closed its official protocol and video cameras.[5] In her account, viewers contacted members of Knesset, the committee ended its session, and the provision failed the next day.[5] Her transparency work also included chairing the Knesset Transparency Committee, which sought to advance freedom of information and public access to government activity.[5] Its inquiries covered the absence of a budget for a northern Israel program, the administration responsible for Gush Katif evacuees, and ministries’ contracts with outside consulting firms.[5]

Housing remained another major focus of Shaffir’s parliamentary work.[6][4] In 2014, she lobbied for rent stabilization after sharp increases in prices.[4] She originally proposed the legislation that became the Fair Rental Law and later worked with Kulanu member Roy Folkman to reach compromises with the governing coalition.[6] Passed in its final vote in July 2017, the law established minimum standards for a habitable rental property, made landlords responsible for repairs arising from ordinary use, and regulated certain costs and rental terms.[6] The final legislation did not include the proposed limit on annual rent increases.[6] Several of her speeches also circulated widely on social media, and she prayed with Women of the Wall, seeking through her presence as an elected representative to help prevent participants’ arrest for causing a public disturbance.[4]

In the 2015 election, Shaffir held fourth place on the joint Labor/Ha’Tnuah list, which received 786,313 valid votes, or 18.67 percent, and won 24 seats.[14] She remained fourth on Labor’s list in April 2019, when the party won six seats.[15] During that election period, she led a petition to the Central Elections Committee seeking to disqualify Michael Ben-Ari from standing for election.[16] The Supreme Court subsequently disqualified Ben-Ari while upholding the candidacies of Balad and Ofer Cassif.[16]

Shaffir expressed her political outlook through a conception of Zionism centered on solidarity and public responsibility.[3] She stated, “Real Zionism is taking care of the weak. Real Zionism is solidarity, not only in battle but in everyday life.”[3] In a 2015 interview, she linked that outlook to hospitals, schools, roads, social welfare, and care for society’s most vulnerable people.[13] She also advocated a political process with the Palestinians and reducing divisions within Israeli society.[13] At the 2015 J Street Conference, she said she envisioned an Israel that “does not control millions of Palestinians.”[3]

Her public appearances included forums addressing possible political arrangements with the Palestinians.[17][18] A conference session scheduled for January 31, 2018, titled “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Political Options,” listed her alongside members of Knesset Moti Yogev, Yoav Kisch, and Tamar Zandberg, with Gilead Sher as moderator.[17] At the 2018 AJC Global Forum in Jerusalem, she argued for a two-state solution in a debate with Oded Revivi, who advocated a one-state solution.[18] Her broader public activity also encompassed women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and educational opportunities for people with autism and other special needs.[2]

In July 2019, Shaffir competed for the Labor leadership and finished second to Amir Peretz, ahead of Itzik Shmuli.[19] Peretz received 47 percent of the vote, while Shaffir received approximately 27 percent and Shmuli approximately 26 percent.[19] She subsequently left Labor and joined the Democratic Camp, also called the Democratic Union, an alliance bringing together Meretz, Ehud Barak’s Israel Democratic Party, and the Green Movement, which she chaired.[20][21] Shaffir took second place on its list behind Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz, while Barak occupied tenth place.[20] Explaining her departure, she described Labor as her ideological home but said that “the house is burning.”[20]

Shaffir submitted her resignation from the 21st Knesset in July 2019 amid uncertainty over whether she could remain registered under Labor while running on another party’s list.[22] Merav Michaeli returned to the Knesset in August after Shaffir’s resignation.[23] In September, the Democratic Union won five seats, and Shaffir returned as one of its members of the 22nd Knesset.[15] The alliance combined several political organizations, rather than simply reproducing Shaffir’s individual positions.[21]

In January 2020, after Labor and Meretz formed a new alliance without her, Shaffir announced that she would not run in the forthcoming election.[24] She said an independent candidacy risked failing to cross the electoral threshold and wasting left-wing votes.[24] She also said that she would continue political activity outside parliament rather than risk the prospects of the center-left.[24] Announcing the decision, she declared, “Although we will not run this time, we are not going anywhere. We will build a new movement to build tomorrow.”[24] Her Knesset service spanned the period from 2013 to 2020.[2]

The Fair Rental Law remained a concrete legislative result of Shaffir’s campaign for tenants’ rights.[6][25] Its protections required rental properties to be in good condition and placed responsibility for repairs on owners, although a 2021 assessment found that the legislation had limited impact on rental prices because it did not cap rents.[25] Her parliamentary record also included the establishment and chairing of the Transparency Committee and sustained attention to the way government spending was examined after a budget had been approved.[5]

After leaving parliament, Shaffir founded Shira Center, an academy for young adults with autism and special needs, as described in her SAPIR Journal biographical note.[26] A 2023 profile identified her as leader of the Green Party and highlighted her work on transparency, women’s and LGBTQ rights, and educational opportunities for people with special needs.[2] These activities extended the range of issues she had pursued during her years in the Knesset.[2]

In a 2023 essay, Shaffir argued that the Israeli left needed to rebuild a democratic political camp around peace, equality, and liberal values.[27] She urged it to reach younger Israelis, including both Arabs and Jews, and to develop shared political infrastructure and a common strategy.[27] She also wrote that she had given up her own parliamentary seat at one point to help secure a union under the Democratic Union name.[27] Looking back on a later election, she argued that the center-left’s failure to unite had serious consequences, pointing to Meretz’s failure to pass the electoral threshold and Labor’s narrow passage above it.[27]

Shaffir’s budget-oversight campaigns generated disputes about both government allocations and the effectiveness of her interventions.[5] Her descriptions of corrupt transfers, the scale of discretionary reallocations, and the consequences of specific spending decisions were allegations and assessments arising from her investigations, rather than independently established findings in the available accounts.[5] Separate Globes reports provided some support for her broader transparency critique without validating every allegation. A 2014 commentary said she was right to criticize the opaque method used to transfer NIS 3.3 billion to the defense budget. A 2016 report said Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni delayed NIS 14 billion in transfers over lack of transparency and received backing from Shaffir and other opposition members.[28][29]

Former Labor member Mickey Rosenthal criticized her record by saying that she “didn’t stop a single shekel in the Finance Committee.”[5] Another reported criticism concerned attendance at 22 of 289 committee meetings during a year when she was an alternate, although alternates were not required to attend.[5] Shaffir disputed the treatment of her record and emphasized her efforts to obtain information about funds for Gush Katif evacuees and the Settlement Division.[5]

Her political positions also included sharp criticism of the 2018 Nation-State Basic Law, which she called “a shame,” describing its supporters’ actions as “the exact opposite of what the Zionist dream was.”[3] During the 2011 protests, she and Daphni Leef favored expanding the budget deficit to meet social demands, while the National Union of Israeli Students favored dialogue.[30] These disagreements concerned political priorities and strategy, as did her later advocacy for rebuilding and unifying the Israeli left.[27][30]