Shulamit Aloni

Shulamit Aloni (Hebrew: שולמית אלוני‎; born in Tel Aviv 29 December 1928 – 24 January 2014) 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. She also worked as an attorney and hosted a radio show Outside Working Hours that dealt with human rights and women's rights. She also contributed to several newspapers.

Hebrew: Micah Yanon with Minister of Education and Culture Shulamit Aloni and Broadcasting Authority CEO Motti Kirschenbaum (1993)

Quotes

• I exist thanks to the decision of my parents, born in Poland, to rebel against the rabbis and immigrate to Israel
• google translate: I exist thanks to the decision of my parents, born in Poland, to rebel against the rabbis and immigrate to Israel
  • שולמית אלוני, ישושון בלי דם ואש, דבר, 21 באוקטובר 1977
• We must turn Israel into a state that’s a challenge to world Jewry and not a Vatican. I believe that we don’t want Israel to turn into a ghetto and an Orthodox theocratic state. Most of the Israelis reject this way of living. We must have a bill of rights and we must liberate the Israeli woman from the bondage of the religious law
  • Special Interview Aloni Warns That Israel Might ‘turn into a Ghetto with an Army’ Unless Major Chang (8 May 1980)

• On that wonderful and moving day, the State of Israel was announced as a democratic country that guarantees complete social and political equality of rights for all its citizens, regardless of religion, race, or gender. All this in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel - the declaration that is the founding document of the young country And of the people fighting for their freedom and sovereignty. (google translate)
  • ref: From the article: Citizenship in Israel: The vision and its aftermath, December 26, 2010 (google translate)
    • ”באותו יום נפלא ומרגש הוכרז על מדינת ישראל כמדינה דמוקרטית המבטיחה שוויון זכויות חברתי ומדיני גמור לכל אזרחיה בלי הבדל דת, גזע ומין. כל זה בהכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל - ההכרזה שהיא המסמך המכונן של המדינה הצעירה ושל העם הנלחם על חירותו ועל ריבונותו."

• It's a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country [US] people are criticizing Israel then they are "anti-semitic" and the organization is strong and has a lot of money and the ties between Israel and american jewish establishment are very strong and they are strong in this country. As you know, they have power which it's okay, they are talented people and they have power, money and media and other things. And their attitude is "Israel is my country, right or wrong", the identification, and they are not ready to hear criticism and it's very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-semitics and to bring up the Holocaust and the suffering of the jewish people. And that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.
  • On Anti-Semitism. See video in YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=OXO4gyBSqq8&t=3m54s

Quotes about Aloni

• Shas, they're just political gangsters. The problem is that the politicians-Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, all of them have cushy jobs on the side. They don't truly feel responsible for representing voters, the citizens
  • Yehuda Amichai 1984 interview in We Are All Close: Conversations with Israeli Writers by Haim Chertok (1989)

• Do you know, in the month before the Jewish Terror Groups were arrested and indicted, I printed an article, "Messiah or Knesset," that predicted the existence of such organizations? Shulamit Aloni read it aloud at the Knesset. "If a writer could predict this," she asked, "why couldn't the authorities?"
  • Shulamith Hareven 1985 interview in We Are All Close: Conversations with Israeli Writers by Haim Chertok (1989)

• [in the Labor party] we don’t know what 'I think' means, we only know what 'we' think
  • Golda Meir "Shulamit Aloni December 28, 1927–January 24, 2014" (23 June 2021)