Benjamin Netanyahu Has Few Women in Inner Circle
Image by getty images
Anyone who has gotten a look at the work environment around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent years will have easily seen that it has been almost totally devoid of women.
The entire cadre of senior managers that Netanyahu has appointed to his bureau since returning to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009 has been made up only of men. His chiefs of staff and bureau chiefs have been men—Natan Eshel, Ari Harrow, Gil Sheffer and Eyal Haimovsky. And the directors general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabbai and Harel Locker, are both male, as have been his cabinet secretaries, Zvi Hauser and Avichi Mandelblit.
But men also rule in other areas of the Prime Minister’s Office. All of Netanyahu’s media adviser appointments have been men—Yossi Levy, Nir Hefetz, Gidi Shmerling and Liran Dan. Policy advisers Uzi Arad, Ron Dermer and Ya’akov Amidror are male. Netanyahu appointed Michael Oren as Israeli ambassador to Washington and he is being replaced by Dermer. And Netanyahu also chose men, Jacob Turkel and Manuel Trajtenberg, to head major public policy panels.
Actually, the last women who worked in a key, influential position close to Netanyahu was current Knesset member Ayelet Shaked, who served as the head of Netanyahu’s office as leader of the opposition.
She left after a year and a half due to friction and tension with Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, among other reasons
For more, go to Haaretz
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
