Naomi Chazan

Naomi Chazan was born in 1946 in Jerusalem

Naomi Chazan was born in Jerusalem on 18 November 1946, during the British Mandate. Her parents were Avraham and Zina Harman. Her father later became Israel's ambassador to the United States, and her mother served in the Knesset.

She earned a B.A. and an M.A. in political science at Columbia University. In 1975 she received a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with a thesis on politics and youth groups in Ghana and Ivory Coast. She became a full professor there in 1994, focusing on African politics, and headed the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace.

She was elected to the Knesset for Meretz in 1992 and reelected in 1996 and 1999, serving as a Deputy Speaker. She initiated laws on women's status and consumer protection, including an amendment on women's right to serve in any IDF role. In 1998 she ran for mayor of Jerusalem and finished fourth.

She was a founder of the Israel Women's Network and served as president of the New Israel Fund from 2008 to 2012. In 2010 the group Im Tirtzu ran a campaign against the fund that showed her in cartoons. She later headed the School of Government and Society at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo and founded the Zulat Institute in 2019.