Naomi Chazan

Naomi Chazan
Date of birth	(1946-11-18) 18 November 1946
Place of birth	Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine
Knessets	13, 14, 15
Faction represented in Knesset
1992–2003	Meretz

Naomi Chazan (Hebrew: נעמי חזן‎, born 18 November 1946) is an Israeli academic, activist, and politician. As a legislator, Chazan championed the causes of human rights, women's rights, and consumer protection. Chazan is president of the New Israel Fund.

Biography

Naomi Chazan (née Harman) was born in Jerusalem during the British Mandate era. Her parents were Avraham and Zina Harman. Her father was later Israeli ambassador to the United States, while her mother worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as a member of Knesset between 1969 and 1974. Chazan studied at Columbia University, earning a BA and MA, before attending the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she gained a PhD. She later headed the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the university.

Political career

In 1985 she was a member of the Israeli delegation to the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi, and in 1995 to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She served as president of the Israeli branch of the Society for International Development, was a founder and member of the board of the Israel Women's Network, and has served as Vice President of the International Association of Political Science.

In 1992 she was elected to the Knesset on the Meretz list. She retained her seat in the 1996 elections and was made a Deputy Speaker. She was re-elected again in 1999 and remained a Deputy Speaker until losing her seat in the 2003 elections.

Controversy

In 2010, while serving as president of the New Israel Fund, Chazan was fired by The Jerusalem Post. The Post said the decision was made on account of a lawsuit against the newspaper filed by Chazan and the NIF. The lawsuit was filed in response to an ad campaign by Im Tirtzu that depicted Chazan with a horn issuing from her forehead.

Published works

Chazan is the author, co-author and editor of eight books and 56 articles in academic journals on comparative (especially African) and Israeli politics.

• An Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: Managing Political Recession, 1969-1982 (Westview Press, 1983, ISBN 0-86531-439-X)
• Ghana: Coping with Uncertainty (Westview Press, 1986, ISBN 0-86531-369-5), with Deborah Pellow
• Coping with Africa’s Food Crisis (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988, ISBN 0-931477-84-0), with Timothy M. Shaw
• The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Westview Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8133-0968-9), with Donald Rothchild
• Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988, ISBN 0-333-46838-4), with Robert Mortimer, John Ravenhill, and Donald Rothchild; reprinted 1992 (ISBN 1555872832) and 1999 (ISBN 155587679X)
• Irredentism and International Politics (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991, ISBN 1-55587-221-2), edited volume
• Civil Society and the State in Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994, ISBN 1-55587-360-X), edited with John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild
• The Early State in African Perspective: Culture, Power and Division of Labor (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997, ISBN 90-04-08355-3), edited with S.N. Eisenstadt and Michel Abitbol

External links

• Curriculum vitae