Shulamit Shahar

שולמית שחר באתר מקבלי פרס ישראל

Shulamith Shahar (Hebrew: שולמית שחר,born 1928) is an Israeli historian. Shahar's 1981 study Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages was the first to specifically examine the role of women in the medieval period. The book is used as a text for gender studies and medieval history classes. This, and her subsequent books, have been published in both Hebrew and English. She has written historical articles in these languages as well as French, and has translated three books from Latin to Hebrew.

Biography Shulamith Shahar was born in Latvia in 1928, the youngest of three daughters of industrialist Moshe Weinstock and his wife Deborah. In 1933, the family emigrated to Mandate Palestine, moving to Haifa. At the time, Shahar spoke only Russian. Her middle sister, Dina, died in the early 1940s during a German massacre of Jews outside Riga.[1]

In high school, Shahar served in the Haganah, a defence force, where she was in charge of an arms depot. After graduating, she attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she soon earned her bachelor's degree in history. At age 19, Shahar married Yitzhak Cohen. They had one child, Evyatar, and divorced when he was two. Shahar then returned to Jerusalem to pursue a master's degree. To support herself, Shahar taught at a high school.

In 1954, Shahar met writer David Shahar at a Purim Party. They lived together for two years before marrying. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. The day after the birth of their daughter, Shulamith's son Evyatar was killed in an army training accident.

After her second marriage, Shulamith Shahar continued her education, and received a scholarship to the Sorbonne. She wrote her doctoral dissertation while living in Paris. On her return to Israel, Shahar became a professor at Tel Aviv University, eventually becoming department head. She retired at age 64 to pursue the career she had always wanted: social work. Shahar is now chairman of a non-profit association which manages a home for battered wives in Jerusalem.

David Shahar died in 1997. For the last few years of his life, he divided his time between Israel and Paris; Shulamith Shahar remained in Israel, in the home they shared for decades.

In 2003, Shahar was awarded the Israel Prize, for general history.

שולמית שחר (נולדה ב-1928) היא פרופסור אמריטה בחוג להיסטוריה כללית שבאוניברסיטת תל אביב וכלת פרס ישראל להיסטוריה לשנת תשס"ג