Esterina Tartman

Esterina Tartman was born in 1957 in Jerusalem

Tartman was born Esterina Shabtai in Jerusalem in 1957, to a religious Sephardic family. As a child she studied at the Haredi Beit Yaakov school, and at 15 she moved to the religious kibbutz Hafetz Haim.

She served in the IDF as an operations sergeant and later as Jerusalem town officer, and was discharged as a major. After her discharge she founded a private staffing company. She married her commander Amos Tartman, and they had 4 children before divorcing in late 1997.

She entered the Knesset in 2006 near the end of the 16th Knesset and was elected again that year. She chaired the Yisrael Beiteinu faction and made statements against appointing Israeli Arabs to key posts, including Raleb Majadele as a minister.

In February 2007 her party nominated her as Tourism Minister. Reports then showed that claims about her academic degrees were not accurate, and she withdrew her candidacy. The Knesset ethics committee later issued her a severe reprimand.

She was not given a realistic place on the list for the 2009 elections and left politics. In 2012 she married architect Uri Sali. She died in 2026 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.