Yosef "Tommy" Lapid was a Yugoslav-born Israeli radio and television presenter, playwright, journalist, politician and government minister known for his sharp tongue and acerbic wit. Lapid headed the secular-liberal Shinui party from 1999 to 2006. He fiercely opposed the ultra-Orthodox political parties and actively sought to exclude any religious observance from the legal structure of the Israeli State. He was the father of Yair Lapid, who served as the 14th Prime Minister of Israel in 2022.

Shinui was a Zionist, secular, and anti-clerical free market liberal party and political movement in Israel. The party twice became the third-largest in the Knesset, but both occasions were followed by a split and collapse; in 1977, the party won 15 seats as part of the Democratic Movement for Change, but the alliance split in 1978, and Shinui was reduced to two seats at the next elections. In 2003, the party won 15 seats alone, but lost them all three years later after most of its MKs left to form new parties. The party was a member of Liberal International until 2009.