Mazi Melesa Pilip[b] (born 1978 or 1979)[3] is an American politician in the Nassau County Legislature representing the 10th district.

[5][6] Pilip was born in extreme poverty in a small village in rural Ethiopia that did not have electricity or running water, and is an Ethiopian Jew.

[9][11][15] After her service in the army, Pilip studied at the University of Haifa, where she was chairwoman of the Ethiopian Student Union for two years, and earned a bachelor's degree in occupational therapy.

[7] He was an American-Ukrainian-Jewish medical student from a family of Holocaust survivors who had come from the United States to Haifa to study medicine at the Technion, later becoming a cardiologist.

[11][10][7] She is an Orthodox Jew, has been vice president of her synagogue (Kol Yisrael Achim), and has been active in trying to revitalize Great Neck and in pro-Israel advocacy.

[12] Pilip campaigned on reviving Great Neck's downtown, and acting as a bridge among the many minority communities in the district.

[24] In November 2023, she won a second term as Nassau County legislator representing District 10 as a Republican (endorsed by the Conservative Party) with 60% of the vote.

[25][26] She had been endorsed by the New York League of Conservation Voters, which cited her driving legislation transferring county land to the Great Neck Park District, approving funding for a streets initiative and water quality protection, and supporting efforts to protect the county's sole source aquifer.

[36][37][38] However, she has refused to answer questions regarding restoring Roe v. Wade or her position on restrictions that fall short of a national ban.

[40][41][42] Pilip has made combatting rising crime rates and improving public safety a key focus of her platform, and cites it as a motivator for her campaign.

[52][53] Pilip is opposed to the 2024 U.S. Senate bill to address the Mexico–United States border crisis, saying its passage would amount to "the legalization of the invasion of our country".

"[57] Pilip's proposed legislation, which was signed into law in August 2024,[57] was condemned by public-health experts and received strong opposition from civil- and disability-rights advocates.