Avi Maoz, born Avigdor Fischheimer in Haifa's Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood to Holocaust survivors Esther and Israel Fischheimer, is an Israeli politician and leader of the Noam party, a far-right religious political party founded in 2019 that advocates Orthodox Jewish identity, social conservatism, opposition to secularism and LGBT rights (including bans on Pride parades and legalization of conversion therapy), women in the IDF, and gender mixing, while seeking changes to the Law of Return and recognition of only Orthodox conversions. A settler who co-founded Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion in 1977 and served as its kibbutz secretary, he enlisted in the IDF in 1975, studied at a yeshiva from 1980 to 1991, and campaigned for Soviet Jewish immigration in the 1980s with Avital Sharansky. Before entering politics, he was appointed Director of the Ministry of Interior in 1999 by Natan Sharansky, later directed the Ministry of Construction and Housing under Effi Eitam, and served as director-general of Yisrael BaAliyah. Elected to the Knesset in 2021 as part of the Religious Zionist Party list and re-elected in 2022, he is the current sole Knesset member for Noam (as of 2026). Appointed deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Office on November 27, 2022 (effective January 3, 2023) overseeing Jewish identity initiatives including Nativ, he resigned on March 1, 2023 citing unfulfilled coalition agreements, returned in May 2023, and resigned again on March 24, 2025. In February 2026, he sponsored a bill for Chief Rabbinate control over all Western Wall prayer areas. Labeled far-right, fundamentalist, and homophobic, he has faced criticism for his anti-LGBT stance and theocratic ambitions, with the Western Wall bill condemned by progressive and Orthodox groups. Married with ten children, he resides in Jerusalem.