Shulamit Aloni | |
|---|---|
| שולמית אלוני | |
.jpg) Shulamit Aloni in 1970 | |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1974 | Minister without Portfolio |
| 1992–1993 | Minister of Education and Culture |
| 1993 | Minister without Portfolio |
| 1993–1996 | Minister of Communications |
| 1993–1996 | Minister of Science and the Arts |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1965–1967 | Labor Alignment |
| 1967–1968 | Labor Party |
| 1968–1969 | Alignment |
| 1974–1975 | Ratz |
| 1975–1976 | Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement |
| 1976–1981 | Ratz |
| 1981–1984 | Alignment |
| 1984–1992 | Ratz |
| 1992–1996 | Meretz |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Shulamit Adler (1927-12-27)27 December 1927 |
| Died | 24 January 2014(2014-01-24) (aged 86) |
| Spouse | Reuven Aloni |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Hebrew University,L.L.B |David Yellin College of Education,BA |
Shulamit Aloni (Hebrew:שולמית אלוני; 27 December 1927 – 24 January 2014)[2] was an Israeli politician. She founded theRatz party, was leader of theMeretz party,Leader of the Opposition from 1988 to 1990, and served asMinister of Education from 1992 to 1993. In 2000, she won theIsrael Prize.
Shulamit Adler was born inPoland.[3] Her mother was aseamstress and her father was a carpenter, both descended from Polish rabbinical families. The familymigrated toMandatory Palestine when she was a child, and Aloni grew up inTel Aviv. She was sent toboarding school duringWorld War II while her parents served in theBritish Army. As a youth she was a member of the socialist ZionistHashomer Hatzair youth movement and thePalmach. During the1948 Arab–Israeli War, she was involved in military struggles for theOld City ofJerusalem and was captured byJordanian forces.[4] Following the establishment of the state of Israel, she worked with child refugees and helped establish a school for immigrant children. She taught in a school while studying law.[5] After her marriage in 1952 to Reuven Aloni, the founder ofIsrael Lands Administration, she moved toKfar Shmaryahu.
Aloni joinedMapai in 1959. She also worked as an attorney, hosted a radio show calledAfter Working Hours giving legal advice to ordinary Israelis and wrote columns for the newspaperYediot Ahronoth and the weeklyLaIsha.[6][7]
In 1965, Aloni was elected to the Knesset on the list of theAlignment, an alliance of Mapai andAhdut HaAvoda, and subsequently founded theIsrael Consumers Council, which she chaired for four years. She left the Alignment in 1973 and established the Citizens Rights Movement, which became known asRatz. The party advocatedelectoral reform, separation of religion and state and human rights and won three seats in the1973 Knesset elections. Ratz initially joined the Alignment-led government with Aloni asMinister without Portfolio but she resigned immediately in protest at the appointment ofYitzhak Rafael as Minister of Religions. Ratz briefly becameYa'ad – Civil Rights Movement when independent MKAryeh Eliav joined the party, but returned to its original status soon after.[citation needed]
Throughout the 1970s Aloni attempted to initiate an ongoing dialogue withPalestinians in hopes of achieving a lasting peace settlement. During the1982 Lebanon War she established the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. In the run-up to the1984 elections, Ratz aligned withPeace Now and theLeft Camp of Israel to increase its size in the Knesset to five seats. In 1992, she led Ratz into an alliance withShinui andMapam to form the newMeretz party,[8] which won 12 seats under her leadership in theelections that year. Aloni becameMinister of Education underYitzhak Rabin but was forced to resign after a year due to her outspoken statements on matters of religion. As Education Minister, she also criticized organized tours by Israeli high school pupils toHolocaustconcentration camps on grounds that such visits were turning Israeli youth into aggressive, nationalistic xenophobes, claiming that students "march with unfurled flags, as if they've come to conquer Poland".[9] She was reappointedMinister of Communications andScience and Culture.
After the signing of theOslo Accords in 1993, Aloni expressed her sentiments that the agreements were a positive turning point on an historic scale: "I feel like on the 29th of November [the date of theUnited Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]; we did not know then what we were heading for, but we knew we were heading for great days."[10]
After themassacre of 29 Muslims inHebron,West Bank on February 25, 1994, perpetrated byBaruch Goldstein, Aloni called for the expulsion ofJewish settlers from Hebron.[11]
After the1996 Knesset election, in which Meretz lost three of its seats, Aloni was ousted from Meretz leadership, withYossi Sarid beingelected to succeed her as leader of Meretz. She then retired from politics.
In a 2002 interview onDemocracy Now!, American journalistAmy Goodman asked Aloni, "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?" Aloni responded, opining that, "It is a trick we use. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country [the USA] people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic... some Israelis attitude is “Israel, my country right or wrong,” identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism."[12]
Aloni was a board member ofYesh Din, an organisation founded in 2005 which focuses on human rights in the occupiedPalestinian territories. She defended U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the title of his book,Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.[13] Later, Aloni said, "I hate to cover up things that should be open to the sun."
With her husband, Reuven Aloni, she had three sons:
Reuven Aloni died in 1988.[14]
In 2018, the Shulamit Aloni Prize was established.[16] The prize is awarded by the Shulamit Aloni Foundation, a non-profit organization created by a group of Aloni's family members and leading media and cultural professionals for this purpose.[17] The prize, which bears a monetary award, is bestowed to its recipients each year in theJaffa Theater (aka The Arab-Hebrew Theater), to creators of cultural works (theater, film, poetry and prose) in bothHebrew andArabic whose work promoteshuman rights.[18][19] Inaugural prize recipients includedRana Abu Fraihah (Arabic Culture Prize),Renana Raz (Hebrew Culture Prize) andSami Michael (Lifetime Achievement Prize).[20] Additional prize recipients includeAyat Abou Shmeiss for Arabic Culture, andAchinoam Nini for Lifetime Achievement.[21]
Leaders of the opposition in Israel  | |
|---|---|
| Leader of the largest opposition party | |
| Officially designated opposition leader |
|
|  | |
| | |
| | |
