Vicki Shiran

Dr. Vicki Shiran (Febuary 28th 1947 Cairo,Egypt- March 15th 2003 Tel-aviv, Israel) was defined as an Israeli "Sephardi feminist warrior". She was a leader of the intergenerational struggle for Mizrahi Jews consciousness, a multi-faceted activist, a Feminist, Journalist, Scholar, Poet and Film maker. She never stopped challenging the foundations of Israeli governmental and ideological domination and hegemony. Her fresh thinking, articulated in many activist and scholarly writings.

Vicki Shiran immigrated to Israel when she was 4. She spent her childhood in The HaTikva (Hope in Hebrew)slum. When 13, she was forced to leave school and provide for her family. She therefore continued her studies through evening adult education. She received her B.A. and M.A.from Tel Aviv University, and a doctorate in Criminology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. In the last decade she taught at the Beit Berl Teacher's College and at The Hebrew University. In 2002 she founded Israel's most original Gender Studies program at the Beit Berl College.

Vicki Shiran, an advocate of equal rights of men and women alike, played a key role in the fight for the advancement of Mizrahim - Jews who immigrated to Israel from the Arab World and other Third World countries. She embarked her political activism in the early 1970s, taking part in the political theater of Jaffa. In 1981 she initiated the highly original "Israel-That's Me!" conference, discussing the rifts between the Ashkenazi establishment and Mizrahi and Palestinian-Israeli citizens of Israel in the open for the first time. This led her to establish the New Direction Stage at the HaTikva slum, where she and her activist friends invited Ashkenazi politicians and public figures so that they hear their criticism about the overlap between Israel's ethnic and class divides. She sued the Israeli broadcast authorities in the Supreme Court for the exclusion of Mizrahi representation in the fancy anniversary TV series, "The Pillar of Fire". She was from the inception of Israel's feminist movement, she joined, always criticizing its exclusion of Mizrahi women, however. In 1991 she and friends initiated the Mizrahi Women's Group, that lead to the 2001 establishment of Achoti (Sister) - For Women in Israel. In 1996 she was among the foundersof The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition, who sued the government of Israel in the Supreme Court, and won, on issues of public housing and land ownership. During the last years of her life she led the successful legislation drive and lost Supreme Court suit against the broadcast of pornography on public TV.

At 57 years of age, she died on March 15, 2004, after several years of struggling with breast cancer. She left behind her husband of 30 years, Israeli filmmaker Haim Shiran and 2 daughters, Alma and Ofrit Shiran.

[edit] Sources www.ha-keshet.org (in Hebrew) http://library.osu.edu/sites/users/galron.1/00464.htm (in Hebrew) www.ynet.co.il (Articles in archive in hebrew) http://www.achoti.org.il/english.html