Rabbi Avi Dabush was born in Ashkelon to a religious, right-wing, Mizrahi family and attended Zionist-religious schools and the Bnei Akiva youth movement. In his early twenties he founded and headed a school for children with autism. Over the last two decades he has been involved in and has led several social organizations and movements, including the Negev Council and the Movement of the Peripheries, and was one of the organizers of the Equality March in 2016 and 2022. He is director-general of Rabbis for Human Rights, author of the book The Periphery Rebellion and regular op-ed contributor for Haaretz and Israel Hayom newspapers. Avi was recently ordained at Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, holds an MA in organizational sociology from Ben Gurion University of the Negev and is a graduate of the Heschel Institute Sustainability Leadership Fellowship Program. He was awarded the New Israel Fund UK's human rights prize in 2021.

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