Tova Ilan

Tova Ilan was born in 1929 in Austria

Tova Ilan was born Gitel Twersky in Vienna, Austria, in 1929, to Rabbi Avraham and Frida Bracha. She immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1936 and was involved in the Haganah.

She joined kibbutz Ein Tzurim in 1951 and served as a co-secretary general of the Bnei Akiva youth movement. From 1951 to 1960 she worked with Youth Aliyah, and from 1961 to 1972 she was principal of the Shafir regional high school.

In 1987 she founded the Yaakov Herzog Center for Jewish Studies of the Religious Kibbutz Movement in Ein Tzurim and led it until 2001. She was among the founders of the Meimad party.

She was 27th on the Labor and Meimad list in the 2003 elections and entered the Knesset in January 2006 as a replacement, during the election recess. She gave her salary to young immigrants and was not on the list for the March 2006 elections.

Bar-Ilan University gave her an honorary doctorate, and she received the Sam Rothberg Prize for Jewish Education from the Hebrew University. She was married to Rafi Ilan, died in 2019 and was buried in Ein Tzurim.