Vicki Shiran (Hebrew: ויקי שירן; February 28, 1947 − March 15, 2004) was an Israeli criminologist, sociologist, poet, film director, media personality and activist.
She was an advocate of equal rights and played a key role in the fight for the advancement of Mizrahim (Jews who originate from Arab or Muslim countries).
In 1960, her father lost his job in the recession, and she was forced to leave school at the age of 13, and go to work to help support her family.
In 1991, she completed another master's degree and a PhD at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University.
The work was based on archival, legal and media research, dealing with corruption in Israeli politics and discrimination against Mizrahi politicians.
She became active in Mizrahi-identified organizations and struggles against the occupation starting in 1970, including the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow and the East to Peace.
As a feminist, Shiran was one of the founders of the Mizrahi Women's Group, which was created to awaken the public feminist discourse in Israel, in light of what she saw as the failure of the second wave of feminism: "It is possible that because Israeli feminism remained insular from, and even disregarded social issues, it has remained as a wallflower in the public discourse.
This led her to establish the New Direction Stage at the HaTikva slum, where she and her activist friends invited Ashkenazi politicians and public figures so that they hear their criticism about the overlap between Israel's ethnic and class divides.
In the early 1980s, she headed the "Tsalash" movement (Zionism for Equality), whose members included Daniel Ben Simon and sociologist Sammy Smooha.
The suit claimed that the historical series "Pillar of Fire" ignores the existence of the Mizrahim and denies their role in building the nation.
Israeli feminism had been mostly imported from the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, and adopted mostly by the hegemonic group of white Ashkenazi Jewish women in Israel.
This time, they consciously chose a plan of action that would ensure they could not be ignored or their issues tabled, even at the cost of open confrontation with the Ashkenazi feminists.
[9] The original discussion planned for the evening was wholly disrupted, displaced by an open battle between the participants, who were divided according to their positions on the Mizrahi issue.
[1] Shiran was the formulator of the "quarters" principle of representation, according to which resources should always be equally divided between Israeli-Palestinian, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi and lesbian women.
[11] Shiran became a well-known media figure, appearing extensively on television, radio and in the news, promoting the social issues she worked on.
"She always wanted us to go into the distressed neighborhoods, to seek out women and men in their forties, who had never had the opportunity to go to school, and convince them to go back and get a higher education.
"[12] Shiran was the scriptwriter for The Salt Statue (1981), produced by Israel Educational Television, which won the International UNESCO Award and the prestigious Israeli David's Harp Prize.