Shulamit Shamir

Shulamit Shamir was born in 1923 in Sofia

Shulamit Shamir was born Sara Levy in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1923. As a young woman she joined the Betar youth movement.

In 1941 she reached Mandatory Palestine on the ship Darian 2 and was held by the British as an illegal immigrant. In the Mizraa camp near Acre she met Yitzhak Shamir, and she was later held in Atlit. She then joined Lehi, where she took the name Shulamit.

She married Yitzhak Shamir in 1944, and their son Yair was born in 1945. After her husband was exiled to Eritrea, she was arrested and held in the women's prison in Bethlehem, where she went on an 11-day hunger strike to be reunited with her son. She was released in May 1948.

She volunteered with bereaved families after the Yom Kippur War and with Akim. She initiated and chaired the Public Council for the Elderly and worked on the Senior Citizens Law of 1989. She also helped renew ties between Bulgaria and Israel, and she faced criticism over alleged involvement in the Israel Broadcasting Authority, which she denied in 2001.

In her last years she lived in a nursing home in Tel Aviv. She died of a stroke in 2011 and was buried on Mount Herzl.