Elana Dorfman: Building Coalitions in the Israeli Feminist Movement

"It is our belief that as long as women aren't full and equal members of society, that the violence against women will continue."

"We have a choice. Do we put this problem away, and only concentrate on our work with women, and perhaps live with the tension beneath the surface? Or open up the subject, not knowing if it will be possible to close it again?"

"Elana Dorfman is a veteran activist of the Israeli feminist movement. In the mid-1970s she participated in one of the first consciousness raising groups on Kibbutz Harel outside of Jerusalem, which was at the core of the emerging feminist movement. In 1981 Elana helped to establish the Rape Crisis Centre in Jerusalem, recruiting and training volunteers to staff the hotline. While temporarily living in Boston in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Elana canvassed for the Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women's Service Groups. Currently, Elana serves as the resource co-ordinator for the Haifa Battered Women's Hotline and is involved in founding Israel's first feminist theatre. Elana holds an MA in Theatre from Emerson College and a BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem."

Elana Dorfman is a writer, storyteller and social activist who lives in Haifa Israel. For over forty-five years she has organized, volunteered and worked to bring about social change around issues of feminism, Jewish renewal, Arab-Jewish shared living and peace. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Bar Ilan University, 2018. For the past 11 years, she has been leading creative writing workshops. Elana ‘s poems have been published in the Voices Israel Anthology 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. She was a finalist in the Brooklyn Arts and Film Festival Non-fiction writing contest 2021.