Aida Touma-Suleiman

Aida Touma-Suleiman (Arabic: عايدة توما سليمان‎; Hebrew: עאידה תומא סלימאן‎, born 16 July 1964) is an Israeli Arab journalist and politician.

Biography

Touma-Suleiman was born in Nazareth, and gained a BA in psychology and Arabic literature from the University of Haifa.

She founded the Arab feminist group Women Against Violence in 1992, and has been its CEO since its foundation. She joined the Hadash party, later becoming editor in chief of Al-Ittihad, an Arabic language newspaper owned by the Israeli Communist Party, a faction in Hadash. She also became the first female member of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel.

She was placed 47th on its list for the 1992 elections, in which it won only three seats. She was 36th on the Hadash–Balad for the 1996 elections, although the alliance won only five seats. In the next elections in 1999 she was 28th on the Hadash list, again failing to enter the Knesset.

The 2009 elections saw her placed fifth on the Hadash list, but the party won only four seats. After contesting the second place on the party's list for the 2013 elections against the incumbent Hana Sweid, a victory for Sweid meant that she was placed 98th on the party's list.

Prior to the 2015 elections Hadash joined the Joint List, an alliance with Balad, the United Arab List and Ta'al. Touma-Suleiman was placed fifth on the Joint List list,^[1] and was elected to the Knesset as the alliance won 13 seats.^[2]

Touma-Suleiman lives in Acre with her two daughters. Her husband Jiris Suleiman died from cancer in 2011.

References

External links

• Aida Touma-Suleiman on the Knesset website