Shulamit Aloni

Shulamit Aloni, fmr. Israeli Minister of Culture (27 December 1928 – 24 January 2014)

Aloni was an outspoken atheist who had been a very controversial figure in Israeli politics. As former Minister of Education, her efforts to secularize instruction in Israeli state schools drew the ire of the Orthodox rabbinate which possesses great political clout in Israel. In a country where conflicts between secular and religious Jews has intensified in recent years she was unabashedly on the side of secularism.

--JF