Ilanit, Fayge (born Hindes)

Fayge Ilanit (née Hindes) was born in Brańsk (the Russian Empire, later Poland) on 7.2.1909 and died on 14.7.2002 in Israel. She was born to Sharaga Hindes and Hannah Shkop (daughter of Rabbi Shimon Shkop), and moved with her family to Ukraine in 1915 but returned to Poland in 1922. After her mother's death and her father's remarriage, she lived at her grandfather. In 1928 she joined Hashomer Hatzair and in 1929 she emigrated to Palestine. In 1933 she joined Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. She married Shlomo Ilan and in 1935 gave birth to her first child, who later died during his IDF service in 1955. Fayge was a Zionist activist and later an Israeli politician. She was active in the ‘Women’s Labour Council’ and a member of the secretariat of the ‘Women’s Labour Council’. She was a member of the central institutions of Mapai (the workers' party) and was active in the League for Friendly Relations with the Soviet Union. She was also a member of the Haganah. She was elected to the first Knesset for Mapai and was a member of the House and Education and Culture Committees. She opposed the Palestine Communist Party and rejected claims of anti-religious coercion in the immigrant camps. During her welfare activity she was supervised by Frieda Weinreich, about whom she wrote an article in the ‘Mitteilungsblatt’ (1965). In the 1940s she also wrote for the Dvaar Hapoelet socialist, feminist journal about the female worker in the moshavot.