Shulamit Aloni

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Political Biography

The lone protest of Shulamit Aloni against the coalition agreement of Shamir's government, October 10, 1983

Shulamit Aloni

Aloni, a lawyer, civil rights activist, and member of the Knesset, was born in 1928 in Tel Aviv. She studied at the Teachers’ Seminar in Jerusalem and at the law faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also served in the Palmach, and during the War of Independence, she was captured by the Jordanian army while at the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Aloni joined Mapai (Worker’s Party of Eretz Yisrael) in 1959. Between the years 1961 and 1965, she produced radio broadcasts on legislation and judicial affairs. One such broadcast prompted Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s government to form the Ombudsman position in 1965. In the same year, Aloni was elected to the Sixth Knesset on behalf of the Alignment. In the elections to the Seventh Knesset (1969) she was not reelected, and following disagreements with Golda Meir, she ran in the elections to the Eighth Knesset (1973) in her own party – the Civil Rights Movement (Ratz) – and won three seats.

In 1974, Aloni served as Minister without Portfolio in Yitzhak Rabin’s government, but resigned to the opposition following the entrance of the National Religious Party into the Government. In 1975, her parliamentary group Ratz merged with a former member of the Alignment (Arie Lova Eliav) to establish the Ya’ad faction, but it later (1976) split and her faction was again called Ratz. Until the 12^th Knesset, she continued her membership in the Knesset under Ratz. In her parliamentary and judicial work, Aloni focused on human rights, prevention of religious coercion and legislation of basic laws. During her term in the Sixth Knesset, she initiated the establishment of the Subcommittee for the Preparation of Basic Laws.

Aloni was among the founding members of Meretz during the 12^th Knesset, which she headed in the forthcoming elections to win 12 seats in the 13^th Knesset. Meretz joined the coalition, headed by Yitzhak Rabin, in July 1992 and Aloni was appointed Minister of Education and Culture. Due to her outspoken statements on matters of religion, and in compliance with the Shas parliamentary group’s request, she was asked by Rabin to step down from her post and was appointed in June 1993 as Minister of Communications, Science and the Arts. She continued to serve in that position during the tenure of the government set up by Shimon Peres following Rabin's assassination. Towards the elections to the 14^th Knesset, Aloni announced her retirement from political life.

Aloni conducts marital ceremonies for couples incapable or unwilling to marry through a religious ceremony – the only official ceremony recognized for Jewish marriages in Israel. Throughout the years she also assisted in the establishment of shelters for battered women and rape trauma centers. She was also a founding member of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and a member of its board of directors.