Shulamit Aloni
Encyclopedia
Shulamit Aloni is an Israeli politician and left-wing activist. She is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp, founded the Ratz party and was leader of the Meretz party and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993.

Biography

Born Shulamit Adler in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, her mother was a seamstress and her father was a carpenter, both descended from Polish Jewish rabbinical families. She was sent to boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 while her parents served in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

. As a youth she was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

 socialist Zionist youth movement and the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...

. During the 1948 Israeli War of Independence she was involved in military struggles for the Old City of Jerusalem and was captured by Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

ian forces.

Following the establishment of the state of Israel, Aloni worked with child refugees and helped establish a school for immigrant children. She was a teacher while studying law. In 1952 she married Reuven Aloni and moved to Kfar Shmaryahu
Kfar Shmaryahu
Kfar Shmaryahu is a local council in Israel, within the Tel Aviv District. The council was founded in 1937, during the Fifth Aliyah to Israel.Kfar Shmaryahu is ranked very highly on the Israeli socio-economic scale...

.

Aloni joined Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...

 in 1959. She also worked as a lawyer and hosted a radio show Outside Working Hours that dealt with human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 and women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

. Aloni also worked as a columnist for several newspapers.

In 1965 she was first elected to the Knesset on the list of the Alignment
Alignment (political party)
The Alignment was an alliance of the major left-wing parties in Israel between the 1960s and 1990s. It was established in 1965 as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda but was dissolved three years later when the two parties and Rafi formally merged into the Israeli Labor Party...

 (a merger of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda was the name used by a sequence of political parties that existed firstly during Mandate Palestine and later in Israel. Its original version, led by David Ben-Gurion, is one of the main ancestors of the modern-day Israeli Labor Party....

), and subsequently founded the Israel Consumers Council, which she chaired for four years.

She left the Alignment in 1973 and established Ratz (Citizens Rights Movement), a party advocating electoral reform
Electoral reform
Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:...

, separation of religion and state and human rights. The party won three Knesset mandates in the 1973 elections
Israeli legislative election, 1973
The Elections for the eighth Knesset were held on 31 December 1973. Voter turnout was 78.6%.-Results:1 Aryeh Eliav left the Alignment and merged with Ratz to form Ya'ad - Civil Rights Movement...

. Ratz initially joined the Alignment-led government with Aloni as minister without portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...

 but she resigned immediately to protest the appointment to cabinet of Yitzhak Rafael
Yitzhak Rafael
Yitzhak Rafael was an Israeli politician who served as Minister of Religions in the mid-1970s.-Biography:Rafael was born in Sabov in Galicia in 1914, and attended high school in Poland...

. Ratz briefly became Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement
Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement
Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement , commonly known as just Ya'ad, was a short-lived political party in Israel. It is not related to the other party by the name of Ya'ad which existed during the ninth Knesset.-Background:...

 when independent MK Aryeh Eliav
Aryeh Eliav
Arie "Lova" Eliav, born Lev Lipschitz , , was an Israeli politician and former member of the Knesset.-Biography:...

 joined the faction, but returned to its original status soon after.

Throughout the 1970s Aloni attempted to create a dialogue with Palestinians in hopes of achieving a lasting peace settlement. During the 1982 Lebanon War
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...

 she established the "International Center for Peace in the Middle East". In 1984, Ratz aligned with Peace Now and the Left Camp of Israel
Left Camp of Israel
The Left Camp of Israel was a left-wing political party in Israel. It was also known as Sheli , an acronym for Peace for Israel .-Background:...

 to increase its size in the Knesset to five mandates. In 1992, she led Ratz into a coalition with Shinui
Shinui
Shinui is 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...

 and Mapam
Mapam
Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...

 to form the new Meretz
Meretz-Yachad
New Movement-Meretz , previously known as Meretz, then Yachad, and then Meretz-Yachad is a left-wing, Zionist, social democratic political party in Israel....

 party, which won 12 seats under her leadership in the elections that year
Israeli legislative election, 1992
Elections for the thirteenth Knesset were held in Israel on 23 June 1992. The result was a victory for the left, led by Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party, though their win was at least partially due to several small right-wing parties narrowly failing to cross the electoral threshold and thus effectively...

. Aloni became Minister of Education under Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....

 but was forced to resign after a year due to her outspoken statements on matters of religion. As Education Minister, she also criticized pilgramages by Israeli students to Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 concentration camps on grounds that such visuts were turning Israeli youth into agressive, nationalistic xenophobes, claiming that students "march with unfurled flags, as if they've come to conquer Poland". She was reappointed Minister of Communications
Communications Minister of Israel
The Communications Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Communications and a relatively minor position in the Israeli cabinet. The post was established in 1952, and until 1970 was known as the Minister of Postal Services...

 and Science and Culture
Science, Culture and Sport Minister of Israel
The Science and Technology Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology and a relatively minor position in the Israeli cabinet. The current minister is Daniel Hershkowitz of The Jewish Home party...

 and served until 1996 when she retired from party politics.

Political activism

Aloni is on the board of the Yesh Din
Yesh Din
Yesh Din is an Israeli human rights group providing legal assistance to citizens of the Palestinian territories. Its name comes from a Hebrew phrase meaning “there is law”...

 organization, which was established in March 2005, and it is " volunteers who have organized to oppose the continuing violation of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory".

Aloni defended U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

's use of the word "apartheid" in the title of his book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is a New York Times Best Seller book written by Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. It was published by Simon and Schuster in November 2006....

. Later, Aloni said, "I hate to cover up things that should be open to the Sun."

On suppression of criticism of Israel

In an 14 August 2002 interview with American journalist Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

, Shulamit Aloni described how she believes the charge of antisemitism is used to suppress criticism of Israel

Goodman:
Yours is a voice of criticism we don't often hear in the United States. Often when there is dissent expressed in the United States against policies of the Israeli government, people here are called anti-semitic. What is your response to that as an Israeli Jew ?


Aloni:
Well, it's a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic. And the organization is strong, and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong and they are strong in this country, as you know. And they have power, which is OK. They are talented people and they have power and money, and the media and other things, and their attitude is "Israel, my country right or wrong", identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism. And it's very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is justify everything we do to the Palestinians.

Awards

  • In 1998, Aloni received a special lifetime award of the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award
    Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award
    The Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award is an award made annually by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel to "an individual or NGO that has made a unique contribution to the advancement of human rights in Israel"...

     by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel
    Association for Civil Rights in Israel
    The Association for Civil Rights in Israel was created as an independent non-partisan organization to protect human rights and civil rights in Israel and the territories under its control....

    .
  • In 2000, she received the Israel Prize
    Israel Prize
    The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...

    , for her lifetime achievements and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.


In 2005, she was voted the 57th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

External links


See also

  • List of Israel Prize recipients
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