Shulamit Aloni
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David Yellin Teachers Training College
1940
Young Shulamit in the 1940s
1965
Shulamit Aloni in the Knesset
2000
Shulamit Aloni with grandchildren in the 2000s
2002
Shulamit Aloni in 2002 at a Peace Now demonstration
David Yellin Teachers Training College
Hebrew University logo
Shulamit Aloni as a young woman with her mother
Shulamit Aloni was born on December 29, 1929, in Poland. 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 Shulamit Aloni grew up in Tel Aviv.
Shulamit Aloni received Diploma from David Yellin Teachers Training College (now David Yellin College of Education) and a Bachelor of law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Over the years, Shulamit Aloni worked as a teacher and as a columnist for several newspapers; published books on political and legal subjects; produced radio programs dealing with legislation and legal procedures (in the wake of one of these, the Office of the Ombudsman was established) and founded the Israel Consumers Council, which she chaired for four years.
Shulamit Aloni served in the Palmaḥ during the War of Independence and was taken prisoner by the Jordanians in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. After her release, she worked with immigrant children.
Shulamit Aloni received a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and joined Mapai in 1959.
In 1961-1965 Shulamit Aloni produced a radio program dealing with issues of legislation and legal procedures, establishing a reputation as a fighter for citizens' rights, and as a critic of the bureaucracy in Israel. It was largely due to her advocacy that the Commission for Public Complaints was established by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1965. She was elected on the Mapai ticket to the Sixth Knesset in 1965. During this period she established the Consumers' Council and served as its chairperson until 1970.
Shulamit Aloni died at age 85, on 24 January 2014.
Shulamit Aloni has been listed as a noteworthy Israeli government official by Marquis Who's Who.
In 2018, the Shulamit Aloni Prize was established. 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.
Shulamit Aloni also was an editor and conductor of radio programs, active in the fields of education and legal aid. Founded in 1966 the Israeli Council for Consumerism, in 1973 the "Movement for Civil Rights and Peace".
Shulamit Aloni was one of the founders of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and a member of its Executive Committee.
Quotations: In a 2002 interview with American journalist Amy Goodman, Shulamit Aloni said that charges of antisemitism are "a trick we use" to suppress criticism of Israel coming from within the United States, while for criticism coming from Europe "we bring up the Holocaust."
Shulamit Aloni was one of Israel’s first feminist leaders.
Over the years Shulamit Aloni helped numerous couples, unable to marry in Israel for halakhic reasons, to draw up marriage contracts, and participated in other activities designed to abolish or circumvent what she regarded as religious coercion.
Shulamit Aloni was also active in helping establish shelters for battered women and stations to assist rape victims. In 1982 she was one of the founders of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East.
Shulamit Aloni was married for 36 years to Reuven Aloni, who died in 1988. With her husband, Reuven Aloni, she had three sons: Dror Aloni - later mayor of Kfar Shmaryahu and head of Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, Nimrod Aloni – an education philosopher, Udi Aloni – a film director, writer, and artist.
