Prof. Yifat Bitton, a nationally recognized leader in advancing equal rights for women and girls, is a full professor on the Haim Striks Law Faculty at Israel’s School of Management. She was appointed to the Supervisory Council of the Bank of Israel in 2018 and was also short-listed for a vacancy on Israel’s High Court of Justice twice (2017 and 2018)—the youngest woman ever to make this list.
Born to Moroccan and Yemenite immigrants sent to populate the struggling Negev town of Kiryat Malachi, Prof. Bitton earned her law degrees with ISEF’s steady support from The Hebrew University (LL.B., Ph.D) and Yale (LL.M.) and was also a joint ISEF-Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard.
She is the founder, chair, and senior attorney at Tmura – The Israeli Anti-Discrimination Center, which champions the rights of women suffering rape and abuse. Under her leadership, Tmura has won dozens of rape and abuse cases and secured unprecedented damages for victims. In addition to her pro bono work at Tmura, Prof. Bitton is a prominent feminist legal scholar and the winner of major prizes from the New Israel Fund and Hadassah for her ground-breaking work.
“I have no doubt in my mind that I would not have made it without ISEF. ISEF gave me not only the immeasurable tools and self-confidence to succeed, but the opportunity to accomplish all that I have in a way that transformed me both personally and professionally. My experience nurturing neglected teens in ISEF’s outreach projects showed me that “success” reaches far beyond my own personal achievements. Today, as a law professor engaged in social justice research, I share ISEF’s noble dream of an Israeli society where the hope of higher education is within reach of all young Israelis.”