Dr. Alice Shalvi was an Israeli professor and educator. Known today as a founding mother of Israeli feminism, she played an important role in advancing progressive education for Orthodox Jewish girls and advancing the status of women in Israel.
Alice Shalvi was born in Essen, Germany in 1926, the youngest of two children, to Benzion Margulies and Perl Hildegard, who were religious Zionists. Soon after Hitler’s rise to power in 1934, the family moved to London. In London, Shalvi’s father and brother initially imported watches and jewelry, then built a factory for ammunition calibration devices. Her parents instilled in her the practical mitzvot (commandments) of zedakah (charity) and hakhnassat orhim (hospitality) by setting an example. Her father was energetically involved in Jewish and Zionist communal affairs, and leaders of the Jewish community from all over the world were often guests at their Shabbat or holiday table. During World War II, Benzion’s activities on behalf of European refugees acquainted Alice with many artists and writers whom he supported.
Shalvi studied English literature at Cambridge University and eventually completed a degree in social work at the London School of Economics. While at Cambridge, she was sent to the Zionist Congress in Basel as a representative of British Jewish students. In 1949, she emigrated to Israel and earned a PhD in English at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1962.
In 1950, she married Moshe Shelkowitz (later changing the surname to Shalvi), an immigrant from New York. They had six children, 21 grandchildren, and 27 great-grandchildren. An editor of Jewish reference books, Moshe Shalvi died in 2013 after 63 years of marriage.
Alice Shalvi headed the English department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and founded the English Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She founded Pelech, a progressive high school for Orthodox girls in Jerusalem that unconventionally taught Talmud.
Shalvi was raised in the Orthodox tradition and identifies herself as a “halakhic Jew.” But she remembers from an early age feeling resentment about the unequal treatment of women in the synagogue and with many rabbinic rulings, which, she says, “have simply failed to keep up with the progress in the last century on the status of women.” She eventually joined the Conservative (Masorti) movement and served as a rector of the Schechter Institute in Israel. Shalvi was president of the “Kehilat Zion” synagogue, which seeks to unite Israeli Jews from all backgrounds. That synagogue is led by Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum, who had been a student of Shalvi’s at Pelech. In the 1990s she founded the International Coalition for Aunah Rights (ICAR), which focuses on the issue of agunot, or women “chained” to a husband who won’t grant them a Jewish divorce, and aims to educate, advocate, and seek solutions to this problem from rabbinical authorities.
Shalvi was the founding director and chairwoman of the Israel Woman’s Network, developing a program that advocated against all forms of discrimination and disadvantage faced by women in Israeli society through conscious-raising, legislation, and litigation. An important goal was gaining acceptance of Israeli Women’s contributions in the armed forces, since army service plays a significant role in Israeli economic, political, and social life. She also embraced the Israeli feminist peace movement and attended some of the first meetings between Israeli and Palestinian women. As committed as she was to reconciliation, she never hesitated to call out hypocrisy or injustice, whether on the part of the Israelis or Palestinians.
Shalvi mentored many feminist activists who have taken on positions of leadership in the feminist movement, both in Israel and in other countries. Under her leadership, the Israel Women’s Network became Israel’s foremost feminist organization, playing a critical role in the advancement of women in local and national politics and advocating for legislation for equality for women in Israel. She was close friends with 10 Jewish American feminists, mostly in the New York area, called “Friends of Alice,” whom she considered her soul mates. “She’s been a teacher, a role model, a fantastic oracle,“ said Letty Pogrebin. “She was a groundbreaking presence who was doing work that had not been done before, in the U.S. or in Israel.” Shalvi has won numerous awards for her feminist activism, in Israel and abroad, including the Israel Prize in 2007 (at age 81), the state’s highest cultural honor.
In 2018, At age 92, Alice Shalvi wrote a memoir, “Never a Native,” which won a National Jewish Book Award. She writes about her feelings as a wanderer, never truly feeling like a part of any country, even wholly Israeli. This feeling of non-nativeness may have driven some of her political and religious choices, influencing Shalvi to be critical of the status quo and an advocate for change. She also writes honestly about the disappointments in her life. During her first year in Israel, she was sexually assaulted by a man she knew well. In the 1960s, she was refused the position of Dean of the University of the Negev because she was a woman. Even her work in Pelech and the Israel Women’s Network became difficult due to internal politics. Most painful of all was her realization that it was difficult to have a fruitful career and at the same time a meaningful, fruitful role as a parent. In addition to her memoir, a film about her life “The Re-Annotated Alice,” directed by Paula Weiman-Kelman, was re-released in 2017.
Alice Shavli died in 2023, at age 96. Shavli states that her feminism stems from a determination to eliminate human suffering. Feminism, she says, “is a point of view. It’s about equality between all human beings with no privileges for one group or another.”