Hadash’s Touma-Sliman to Continue Chairing Knesset Committee on Gender Equality

Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash) was re-elected on Tuesday, July 27, as chair of the Knesset’s Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality. Touma-Sliman was first elected head of the committee in June 2015.

MK Aida Touma-Sliman, the newly re-elected chair of the Knesset’s Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, receives the congratulations of the Knesset speaker, Mickey Levy, July 27, 2021.

MK Aida Touma-Sliman, the newly re-elected chair of the Knesset’s Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, receives the congratulations of the Knesset speaker, Mickey Levy, July 27, 2021. (Photo: Knesset)

“The value that guides me and will guide the committee is equality,” she told Zo Haderech. “Sometimes I will challenge you, sometimes I will annoy some of you, but I promise it will always be interesting and the committee will always be a home for all organizations on the ground that want to advance gender equality.”

MK Touma-Sliman, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel, is a prominent feminist activist and founder of the feminist group Women against Violence. As the former editor of Al-Ittihad, she was the first and only woman in Israel ever to head up a daily Arabic-language newspaper. Touma-Sliman was also the first female member of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel and founder of the International Women’s Commission for a Just Palestinian-Israeli Peace. In the Knesset, Touma-Sliman has been active in the struggle for peace and against the occupation, for social justice and gender equality, and has advanced legislation for various laws to advance and protect women’s rights. MK Touma-Sliman was born in 1964 in Nazareth, holds a B.A. in psychology and Arabic literature from the University of Haifa, and now lives in Acre.