Fayge Ilanit

Fayge Ilanit was born in 1909 in Białystok

Fayge Hindes was born in 1909 in Brańsk, then in the Russian Empire, to Rabbi Shraga Faivel Hindes and a daughter of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. In 1915 the family moved to the Kharkov region, and she studied at a Russian gymnasium in Sumy. After her mother died and her father remarried, she went back to Poland to live with her grandparents.

In 1922 she moved to Grodno and joined Hashomer Hatzair. She took part in leading the local chapter and was elected to the movement's national council.

In February 1929 she immigrated to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Hadera, then moved to Binyamina, where she worked in orchards and road paving. In 1933 she joined kibbutz Gan Shmuel. She married Shlomo Ilan, and they had 4 children, including Uri, born in 1935.

She was active in the Women's Labor Council and in the central bodies of Mapam. She was elected to the first Knesset and sat on the House and Education and Culture committees. She opposed the Palestine Communist Party and rejected claims of anti-religious coercion in the immigrant camps.

Her son Uri was captured in Syria in December 1954 and took his own life in captivity in January 1955. She became blind in old age and died in 2002. She was buried beside him at Gan Shmuel.