Shula Keshet

Shula Keshet was born in 1959 in Tel Aviv

Shula Keshet was born on August 2, 1959, in Tel Aviv, to a family descended from the Mashhadi Jews of Iran. She grew up in South Tel Aviv and still lives and works there. Her grandmother Hannah Kalati founded a Mothers House for elderly women, and her mother Mazal Kashi was a nurse who gave free vaccinations to neighbors as a volunteer.

In the early 1980s she studied art in Ramat HaSharon and earned a teaching certificate. She taught art in schools and gave courses at community centers. Her formal art training almost made her stop making art, since she felt it ignored Mizrahi and non-European artists.

In 1991 she became manager of the Milo Early Childhood Center in Yad Eliyahu and held the post for about 10 years. Working with Tikva Levy, she ran an art and cinema project in community schools that dealt with identity, gender and politics.

In 2000 she helped found Ahoti, a Mizrahi feminist movement, and she established Ahoti House, a fair trade store and the Libi BaMizrach festival of Mizrahi culture. Since the 1980s she has led protests against the Tel Aviv central bus station in Neve Sha'anan, and she led local opposition to the deportation of African asylum seekers. Her art and curating focus on Mizrahi feminist identity and on women of Arab origin.

In 2018 she was elected chair of the Neve Sha'anan neighborhood committee and then to the Tel Aviv city council. In 2019 she received the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.