Aloni, Shulamit

(1929- )

   Writer, lawyer, and prominent feminist activist born in Tel Aviv. A committed secularist and civil libertarian, she fought the rigid control exercised by the Orthodox rabbinate over such issues as marriage, divorce, and other areas of personal status. She was elected to the Knesset on the Israel Labor Party list in 1965 but was dropped from the list for the 1969 and 1973 elections. She ran independently and led the Citizens' Rights Movement (CRM; see CITIZEN'S RIGHTS AND PEACE MOVEMENT) in the 1973 elections, when it secured 3 seats. CRM subsequently joined the coalition government led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1974, with Aloni serving as minister without portfolio. She subsequently resigned from the coalition to protest the inclusion of the National Religious Party in the government. Aloni headed Meretz and won 12 seats in the 1992 Knesset election. Between 1992 and 1996, she held ministerial portfolios in the Labor-led coalition headed by Rabin and in that capacity introduced a number of measures that upset the ultra-Orthodox member of the coalition, SHAS (see SEPHARDI TORAH GUARDIANS [SHAS]). Aloni retired from party politics prior to the 1996 election.

   See also Political parties.