Shulamith Shahar was born in Latvia on 2 November 1928, the youngest of three daughters of industrialist Moshe Weinstock and his wife Deborah.

[1] In high school, Shahar served in the Haganah, a defence force, where she was in charge of an arms depot.

The day after the birth of their daughter, Shulamith's son Evyatar was killed in an army training accident.

On her return to Israel, Shahar became a professor at Tel Aviv University, eventually becoming department head.

[2] In 1981, Shahar published a groundbreaking study, Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages.

[1] Her work has made Shahar a feminist role model, although she claimed to be uninterested in the theory of feminism.

Her third book, Growing Old in the Middle Ages: Winter Clothes Us in Shadow and Pain (1995) was also published in Hebrew and English.

[1] In addition to her original works, Shahar translated The Letters of Abelard and Heloise into Hebrew from Latin.