Yael Rom

Yael Rom was born in 1932 in Mandatory Palestine

Yael Rom was born Yael Finkelstein in 1932 in Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv. She finished high school in 1950 and soon joined the Gadna youth corps.

She passed the air force pilot tests along with 29 other Gadna members and went on to the flight course, where she flew Stearman aircraft. She finished second in her class, received her wings on December 27, 1951, in the 5th flying course, and was certified as a flight instructor. She was then sent back to the Gadna to instruct cadets.

After six months of requests, she returned to the air force and in 1953 joined 103 Squadron, flying the Dakota transport plane. As a reserve pilot in the 1956 Suez War, she was co-pilot of the lead plane in the parachute drop at the Mitla Pass. She later dropped paratroops at El-Tor and was on the first plane to land at Sharm el-Sheikh.

In 1957 she began flying for Arkia, and she left reserve service in 1962. She earned a degree in history and political science at the Hebrew University and worked at the Technion from 1960 to 1982, where she ran a unit that supported students with special needs. She founded a program to bring girls into engineering, which became an ORT program, and in 1983 ran for mayor of Haifa, finishing second with 17.9 percent.

She was married to Yosef Rom, a Technion professor of aeronautics and a Likud member of the Knesset, and they had 3 children. She died of cancer on May 24, 2006. In 2008 Petah Tikva named a street after her.