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and could run as candidates for religious councils. The court also ruled in 1995 in favor of Alice
Miller, a licensed pilot who wanted to serve as such in the air force. Although Miller failed the
course, she laid the foundation for Roni Zuckerman to become the fi rst woman fi ghter pilot in
2001. The air force also has women navigators, transport pilots, and helicopter pilots. In 2007,
a woman became the air force's fi rst woman deputy squadron commander.
By 2005, women were permitted to serve in 85 percent of all positions in the military, com-
pared to 73 percent a decade earlier, and 56 percent twenty years earlier. By 2005 there were
450 women in combat units. The following year, Keren Tendler, who died when a helicopter
was shot down over Lebanon, became the fi rst woman killed in combat service since the War
of Independence. Only 2.5 percent of women soldiers are in combat units, however. By 2007,
there were three female brigadier generals and twenty colonels.
With the rise in opportunities, Israeli women have also advanced politically. In 1992, a
group of women Knesset members started the Committee on the Status of Women with both
male and female members to promote women's issues and increase the number of women in
the Knesset. In 2005, the committee successfully supported legislation that gave additional
government funding to political parties whose Knesset delegations were more than 30 percent
female.
Nevertheless, only 17 members of the 120-member Knesset elected in 2003 were women.
That number fell by one in the 2006 elections, although that year Dahlia Yitzhak became the
fi rst woman speaker of the Knesset. She also served as acting president when Moshe Katsav was
forced to resign following a sexual harassment scandal. In the 2009 election, with a woman,
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leading the Kadima Party ticket as its candidate for prime minis-
ter, 21 women were elected to the Knesset.
Women are also underrepresented in business leadership positions. A 2006 survey by Dun
and Bradstreet found that while 46 percent of the working population consisted of women,
they were only 2.5 percent of those serving on boards of Israeli companies. The same report
found that women were only 6.6 percent of all heads of companies, 11.8 percent of senior vice
presidents, and 14 percent in all senior management positions. Nevertheless, Israel's wealthiest
citizen is a woman. Shari Arison, controlling stockholder of Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest
bank, and of the nation's largest construction company is the richest woman in the Middle East
and, in 2007, was the only woman among the Middle East's top twenty richest people.
Israeli women have been protected in the workplace by the Equal Employment Opportuni-
ties Law, passed in 1988, which made illegal all forms of discrimination in the workplace on the
basis of gender, marital status, and parenthood. The Israeli Prevention of Sexual Harassment
Law was passed in 1998 protecting victims of this crime. Since then, Israel has had several
sexual harassment scandals reaching into the highest levels of government. Minister of Justice
Haim Ramon was forced to resign in 2006 after kissing a woman soldier against her will. Not
long afterward, Israel's president, Moshe Katsav, was forced to resign after being charged with
rape and sexual harassment of several women, crimes for which he was convicted.
By 2009, several women were in top positions in Israeli society: six of the twelve Supreme
Court justices in Israel were women, including the Supreme Court president, Dorit Beinisch;
Livni was head of a major political party; and Yitzhak was Knesset speaker. Still, Jewish women
