Shulamit Aloni

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Shulamit Aloni

| native_name = {{Nobold|{{Script/Hebrew|שולמית אלוני}}}}

| image = Shulamit Aloni (997009452001305171).jpg

| module =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1927|12|27|df=y}}

| birth_place = Włocławek, Poland{{Cite web|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aloni-shulamit |title=Shulamit Aloni |website=jwa.org |access-date=2024-07-04}}

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2014|1|24|1927|12|27|df=y}}

| death_place = Kfar Shmaryahu, Israel

| office1 = Ministerial roles

| suboffice1 = Minister without Portfolio

| subterm1 = 1974

| suboffice2 = {{nowrap|Minister of Education and Culture}}

| subterm2 = 1992–1993

| suboffice3 = Minister without Portfolio

| subterm3 = 1993

| suboffice4 = Minister of Communications

| subterm4 = 1993–1996

| suboffice5 = Minister of Science and the Arts

| subterm5 = 1993–1996

| office6 = Faction represented in the Knesset

| suboffice6 = Labor Alignment

| subterm6 = 1965–1967

| suboffice7 = Labor Party

| subterm7 = 1967–1968

| suboffice8 = Alignment

| subterm8 = 1968–1969

| suboffice9 = Ratz

| subterm9 = 1974–1975

| suboffice10 = {{nowrap|Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement}}

| subterm10 = 1975–1976

| suboffice11 = Ratz

| subterm11 = 1976–1981

| suboffice12 = Alignment

| subterm12 = 1981–1984

| suboffice13 = Ratz

| subterm13 = 1984–1992

| suboffice14 = Meretz

| subterm14 = 1992–1996

| alma_mater = Hebrew University, L.L.B {{!}} David Yellin College of Education, BA

| birth_name = Shulamit Adler

| spouse = Reuven Aloni

| children = 3

| caption = Shulamit Aloni in 1970

}}

Shulamit Aloni ({{langx|he|שולמית אלוני}}{{ltr}}; 27 December 1927 – 24 January 2014){{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/shulamit-aloni-politician-who-championed-human-rights-and-was-fiercely-critical-israel-s-treatment-palestine-9094360.html|title=Shulamit Aloni: Politician who championed human rights and was fiercely critical of Israel's treatment of Palestine|website=The Independent|date=29 January 2014|author=Mira Bar-Hillel|access-date=10 October 2020}} was an Israeli politician. She founded the Ratz party, was leader of the Meretz party, Leader of the Opposition from 1988 to 1990, and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993. In 2000, she won the Israel Prize.

Biography

=Early life=

Shulamit Adler was born in Poland.{{Cite web |date=2021-06-23 |title=Shulamit Aloni |url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aloni-shulamit |access-date=2024-07-02 |website=Jewish Women's Archive |language=en}} Her mother was a seamstress and her father was a carpenter, both descended from Polish rabbinical families. The family migrated to Mandatory Palestine when she was a child, and Aloni grew up in Tel Aviv. She was sent to boarding school during World War II while her parents served in the British Army. As a youth she was a member of the socialist Zionist Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and the Palmach. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, she was involved in military struggles for the Old City of Jerusalem and was captured by Jordanian forces.[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jSource/biography/aloni.html Shulamit Aloni] Jewish Virtual Library; accessed January 25, 2014. 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.{{Cite web|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aloni-shulamit|title=Shulamit Aloni {{!}} Jewish Women's Archive|website=jwa.org|language=en|access-date=2017-12-07}} After her marriage in 1952 to Reuven Aloni, the founder of Israel Lands Administration, she moved to Kfar Shmaryahu.

Aloni joined Mapai in 1959. She also worked as an attorney, hosted a radio show called After Working Hours giving legal advice to ordinary Israelis and wrote columns for the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth and the weekly LaIsha.{{Cite book |last1=Slater |first1=Elinor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=34NtAAAAMAAJ |title=Great Jewish Women |last2=Slater |first2=Robert |date=1994 |publisher=Jonathan David Publishers |isbn=978-0-8246-0370-0 |pages=24 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Morgan |first=Robin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vFpsCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT367 |title=Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology |date=2016-03-08 |publisher=Open Road Media |isbn=978-1-5040-3324-4 |language=en}}

=Political career=

File:Shulamit Aloni and Ze'ev Sherf in the Knesset.png

In 1965, Aloni was elected to the Knesset on the list of the Alignment, an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda, and subsequently founded the Israel Consumers Council, which she chaired for four years. She left the Alignment in 1973 and established the Citizens Rights Movement, which became known as Ratz. The party advocated electoral reform, separation of religion and state and human rights and won three seats in the 1973 Knesset elections. Ratz initially joined the Alignment-led government with Aloni as Minister without Portfolio but she resigned immediately in protest at the appointment of Yitzhak Rafael as Minister of Religions. Ratz briefly became Ya'ad – Civil Rights Movement when independent MK Aryeh Eliav joined the party, but returned to its original status soon after.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

Throughout the 1970s Aloni attempted to initiate an ongoing dialogue with Palestinians in hopes of achieving a lasting peace settlement. During the 1982 Lebanon War she established the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. In the run-up to the 1984 elections, Ratz aligned with Peace Now and the Left Camp of Israel to increase its size in the Knesset to five seats. In 1992, she led Ratz into an alliance with Shinui and Mapam to form the new Meretz party,{{Cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shulamit-Aloni|title=Shulamit Aloni {{!}} Israeli politician |work=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=2017-12-07 |language=en}} which won 12 seats under her leadership in the elections that year. Aloni became Minister of Education under Yitzhak 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 to Holocaust concentration 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".{{cite news |author=Tom Hundley |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1993/05/09/2-views-of-a-horror/ |work=Chicago Tribune |title=2 Views Of A Horror |date=9 May 1993 |access-date=27 January 2014}} She was reappointed Minister of Communications and Science and Culture.

After the signing of the Oslo 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 the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]; we did not know then what we were heading for, but we knew we were heading for great days."{{cite web |title=Shulamit (Adler) Aloni (Hebrew) |url=http://palmach.org.il/memorial/fighterpage/?itemId=74362 |website=palmach.org.il |access-date=5 August 2018}}

After the massacre of 29 Muslims in Hebron, West Bank on February 25, 1994, perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein, Aloni called for the expulsion of Jewish settlers from Hebron.{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/world/middleeast/shulamit-aloni-outspoken-israeli-lawmaker-dies-at-86.html |title=Shulamit Aloni, Outspoken Israeli Lawmaker, Dies at 86 |last=Rudoren |first=Jodi |date=25 January 2014 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2017-12-07 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

After the 1996 Knesset election, in which Meretz lost three of its seats, Aloni was ousted from Meretz leadership, with Yossi Sarid being elected to succeed her as leader of Meretz. She then retired from politics.

=Last years=

In a 2002 interview on Democracy Now!, American journalist Amy 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."{{cite web |title=Israel’s First Lady of Human Rights: A Conversation with Shulamit Aloni |url=https://democracynow.org/stories/3517 |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=27 August 2024 |language=en |date=14 August 2002}}

Aloni was a board member of Yesh Din, an organisation founded in 2005 which focuses on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Personal life

With her husband, Reuven Aloni, she had three sons:

Dror Aloni – later mayor of Kfar Shmaryahu and head of Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium
{{ill|Nimrod Aloni (professor)|lt=Nimrod Aloni|he|נמרוד אלוני}} – an education philosopher
Udi Aloni – a film director, writer and artist

Reuven Aloni died in 1988.{{cite news |author=Yaron Druckman |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4480558,00.html |title=Former minister Shulamit Aloni dies at the age of 85 |publisher=Ynetnews |date=24 January 2014 |access-date=27 January 2014}}

File:Shulamit Aloni as a young girl.jpeg|Young Shulamit in the 1940s.

File:Shulamit Aloni with her mother.jpg|Shulamit Aloni as a young woman with her mother.

File:Shulamit Aloni with Reuven Aloni.jpeg|Shulamit and Reuven Aloni in the 1980s.

File:Shulamit Aloni with 3 of her grandchildren.jpg|Aloni with grandchildren in the 2000s.

She was an atheist."Aloni is an outspoken atheist who has been a very controversial figure in Israeli politics. As former Minister of Education, her efforts to secularize instruction in Israeli state schools had drawn the ire of the Orthodox rabbinate which possesses great political clout in Israel. In a country where conflicts between secular and religious Jews has intensified in recent years she has been unabashedly on the side of secularism. " [http://www.celebatheists.com/?title=Shulamit_Aloni Celebatheists – Shulamit Aloni]

Shulamit Aloni Prize

In 2018, the Shulamit Aloni Prize was established.{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/theater/.premium-1.6117054|title=קרן שולמית אלוני ותיאטרון יפו יעניקו פרס חדש ליוצרים ערבים ויהודים|newspaper=הארץ|language=he|access-date=2019-12-11}} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://tv.social.org.il/updates/57648|title=פרס היצירה על שם שולמית אלוני {{!}} עדכון חדשות|date=2018-04-04|website=הטלוויזיה החברתית|language=he-IL|access-date=2019-12-11}} The prize, which bears a monetary award, is bestowed to its recipients each year in the Jaffa Theater (aka The Arab-Hebrew Theater), to creators of cultural works (theater, film, poetry and prose) in both Hebrew and Arabic whose work promotes human rights.{{Cite web|url=https://news.walla.co.il/item/3164523|title="אפשר גם אחרת": פרס שולמית אלוני יוענק לאמנים ויוצרים|date=2018-06-09|website=וואלה! חדשות|language=he-IL|access-date=2019-12-11}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.mekomit.co.il/%d7%9c%d7%97%d7%aa%d7%95%d7%a8-%d7%a0%d7%92%d7%93-%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%97-%d7%94%d7%aa%d7%a7%d7%95%d7%a4%d7%94-%d7%a4%d7%a8%d7%a1-%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%a8%d7%94-%d7%97%d7%93%d7%a9-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%a9/|title=לחתור נגד רוח התקופה: פרס יצירה חדש על שם שולמית אלוני|date=2018-07-03|website=שיחה מקומית|language=he-IL|access-date=2019-12-11}} Inaugural prize recipients included Rana Abu Fraihah (Arabic Culture Prize), Renana Raz (Hebrew Culture Prize) and Sami Michael (Lifetime Achievement Prize).{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/.premium-1.6729348|title=רננה רז ורנא אבו־פריחה זכו בפרס שולמית אלוני ליצירות עבריות וערביות|newspaper=הארץ|language=he|access-date=2019-12-11}} Additional prize recipients include Ayat Abou Shmeiss for Arabic Culture, and Achinoam Nini for Lifetime Achievement.{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1gHn5oOqrjsMrdm7QbUUKQ|title=פרס היצירה עש שולמית אלוני|website=YouTube|language=en|access-date=2019-12-11}}

Awards and recognition

In 1994, received an honorary PhD in Humanities from Hebrew Union College.
In 1994, received an honorary PhD of Law from Kon-Kuk University.
In 1998, Aloni received a special lifetime award of the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.{{cite web|url=http://www.acri.org.il/story.aspx?id=176|title=List of recipients of the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award on the Association of Human Rights in Israel website|language=he|access-date=20 June 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100819195848/http://www.acri.org.il/story.aspx?id=176|archive-date=19 August 2010}}
In 1999, received an honorary PhD of Philosophy from the Weitzman Institute of Science.
In 2000, she received the Israel Prize, for her lifetime achievements and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.{{Cite web|title=Israel Prize Official Site (in Hebrew)|url=http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashas/ShulamitAloni/}}{{Cite web|title=Israel Prize Official Site (in Hebrew) – Judges' Rationale for Grant to Recipient|url=http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashas/ShulamitAloni/NimukeiAshoftimAloni.htm}}

Published works

The Citizen and His Country, 1958
Children's Rights in Israel,1964 (Hebrew)
The Arrangement - From a State of Law to a State of Religion, on Relations Between State and Religion, 1970 (Hebrew)
Women as Human Beings, 1976 (Hebrew)
"Up the down escalator" in Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, ed. Robin Morgan, 1984.{{cite web |url=https://catalog.vsc.edu/lscfind/Record/154795/TOC#tabnav |title=Table of Contents: Sisterhood is global |publisher=Catalog.vsc.edu |access-date=2015-10-15 |archive-date=2015-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208065459/https://catalog.vsc.edu/lscfind/Record/154795/TOC#tabnav |url-status=dead }}
Democracy in Shackles (Demokratia be'azikim), Am Oved {{in lang|he}}{{cite news |author=Yair Sheleg |date=23 November 2008 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/the-road-to-perdition-1.258036 |title=The road to perdition |work=Haaretz |access-date=27 January 2014}}
Israel: Democracy or Ethnocracy? published in 2008