Rachel Yanait

Born Golda Lishanski in the shtetl of Maline, Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), to a Hasidic family, Rachel Yanait moved at age fifteen to study in a gymnasium in Zhitomir, where she became a Labor Zionist. In 1908, she immigrated to Palestine, where she Hebraicized her name to Rachel Yanait, cofounded the Hebrew gymnasium in Jerusalem, and became a founding member of the Hashomer defense group (1909). Leaving Palestine to study agronomy in France between 1911 and 1914, she returned to work with the agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn during World War I. After the war, Yanait married Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who was to become the second president of Israel. She founded agricultural teaching farms in Jerusalem and Ein Kerem, advocated for better support for immigrants from Mediterranean communities, took part in Haganah activities in Jerusalem, was a leader of labor Zionist Aḥdut ha-Avodah (which became part of Mapai in 1930), and published broadly on education, Zionism, women’s suffrage, and Jewish history. Yanait helped establish Yad Ben-Zvi, a research institution focusing on Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Israel studies in Jerusalem. She was awarded the israel Prize in 1978.