Meirav Cohen

Cohen grew up in Jerusalem in a family whose parents had immigrated from Morocco.[10][3] She earned an honors bachelor’s degree in economics and business administration and a master’s degree in business administration and urban planning from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[11]

Before entering politics, she wrote for local Jerusalem newspapers, served in Army Radio, and worked as an economics reporter for Ynet.[3] Her communications work also included serving as the economic-social spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office during Ariel Sharon’s tenure.[11]

Cohen helped found the Jerusalem political movement Hishtorerut, or Awakening, in 2008 and was elected to the Jerusalem City Council on its slate in 2011.[3] She became known for activism concerning employment, housing, and socioeconomic conditions.[3] Her local campaigns addressed religious coercion and the living and employment conditions of disadvantaged groups.[3]

Her municipal work encompassed opening the Carta parking lot on Shabbat, relocating government offices and agencies to Jerusalem, abandoned houses, and municipal property-tax arrangements.[11] She also campaigned for changes to the Mehir LaMishtaken housing program to benefit the working population.[11] She was listed as a participant in a session on developing Jerusalem as a successful government city at a 2020 conference that was postponed because of COVID-19.[11] The session was intended to examine the economic opportunities associated with Jerusalem’s role as Israel’s capital and stronger connections between the city and its government district.[11]

Cohen ran for the Knesset with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party in 2013 but was not elected.[6] The party won six seats, and her first daughter was born on election day after Cohen had campaigned among polling stations.[6] Following the election, she became chief executive of Public Trust, a consumer organization working on complaints, business practices, mediation, and policy.[6] She described the position as a continuation of her public-service work across journalism, politics, and the nonprofit sector, with an emphasis on connecting consumers, businesses, and government to improve consumer protection.[6]

Cohen traced her campaign against the exploitation of older people to an appeal from the family of pensioner Yehudit Kasif while she was leading Public Trust.[12] The family alleged that telemarketing companies had taken hundreds of thousands of shekels from Kasif; her son sought help after she said she could not afford a taxi to visit her grandchildren.[12] Cohen said her investigation revealed a wider pattern of companies targeting older customers and sharing information about vulnerable people.[12]

In 2018, she described companies obtaining credit-card details through telephone calls, sending unwanted products, and charging substantial sums.[12] She estimated that approximately 120 companies were exploiting thousands of older people, including isolated, widowed, ill, and immigrant customers.[12] Her campaign involved identifying companies, filing police complaints, and publicizing individual cases.[13] Cohen reported that it had recovered millions of shekels and grown into a volunteer network of approximately 600 people, including investigators, lawyers, social workers, and interpreters.[13] Her work also included introducing legislation intended to prevent credit-card companies from transferring funds to such businesses, alongside initiatives concerning affordable retirement housing and employment for people aged 60 and over.[4]

Cohen entered the Knesset in 2019 after running in seventeenth place on Benny Gantz’s Blue and White slate.[3][13] She again occupied seventeenth place on the Kahol Lavan slate in the March 2020 election, in which the party won 33 seats.[14] In May 2020, she was appointed minister of social equality in the unity government.[15] The 35th government was sworn in on May 17 following a political stalemate and three elections; its 36 ministers and 16 deputy ministers made it Israel’s largest government to that point.[15]

In January 2021, Cohen left Blue and White for Yesh Atid ahead of the March election.[10] She said she disagreed with Blue and White’s direction and that its participation in government with Benjamin Netanyahu had shaped her decision; she viewed joining Yesh Atid or leaving politics as her alternatives.[10] She was placed fifth on Yesh Atid’s election slate.[16]

Cohen served as minister for social equality and pensioners in the 36th government, which held office from June 13, 2021, to December 28, 2022, representing Yesh Atid.[1] She was one of the women ministers who identified as feminist in the Bennett-Lapid government, where nine women held ministerial portfolios, accounting for 33% of the government.[17] In the November 2022 election, she was again fifth on Yesh Atid’s list; the party won 24 seats with 847,145 votes, or 17.78% of the total.[18]

In May 2024, Cohen participated as a Yesh Atid Knesset member and former minister in a meeting with a visiting solidarity delegation that discussed the hostages, the future of the Israel-Hamas war, and antisemitism.[19] By February 2026, she chaired the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality.[20] At a hearing on sexual-assault cases, she argued that deficiencies in the treatment of victims by enforcement and legal authorities affected not only outcomes but also the sensitivity of proceedings, available support, and victims’ trust in justice.[20]

Cohen was placed ninth on the B’Yachad slate for the October 27, 2026 election and was presented as the proposed education minister following an announcement by Yair Lapid.[21][2] B’Yachad received 531,476 votes, or 9.34%, and won 12 seats, with Cohen among those elected.[2]

During the COVID-19 crisis, Cohen said the state had been unprepared to address older people’s needs and that one of her first steps as minister was to map those needs more systematically.[10] In August 2020, she joined the coronavirus cabinet after criticism of its all-male membership; she and Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman had previously participated as observers.[22] Cohen said she would represent older people, whom she considered especially vulnerable during the crisis.[22]

During her ministerial tenure, the annual grant for approximately 116,000 Holocaust survivors and people persecuted for antisemitic or racist reasons during World War II rose from NIS 3,991 to NIS 6,500, effective January 2022.[7] Cohen also said the government had increased income support for the poorest survivors by NIS 500 per month and secured additional German funding for some recipients.[7]

An agreement reached in 2022 by Cohen and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner extended German-funded home nursing assistance to an additional 14,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, at NIS 1,200 per month.[23] An expansion of eligibility also meant that 81,000 survivors in Israel would receive a one-time payment of 1,200 euros for 2023.[23]

In 2021, Cohen and Knesset member Vladimir Beliak announced NIS 1 million for translating and regularly updating hundreds of pages of rights information on the Kol Zchut website into Russian.[24] The initiative addressed language barriers that could prevent Russian-speaking immigrants, including older people and Holocaust survivors, from accessing government services and exercising their rights.[24]

In 2020, the government approved Cohen’s proposal that women hold at least 50% of senior civil-service positions, including posts reporting directly to directors-general or equivalent officials.[8] Civil-service figures for 2019 showed women holding approximately 750 of roughly 1,700 senior posts, or 44%, but only 11% of positions in the highest tier.[8] Cohen linked the proposal to improving government work and increasing women’s participation in decision-making.[8]

As minister, she promoted a three-year, NIS 30 million initiative described as Israel’s first government plan focused on the LGBTQ community.[25] Its budget allocated NIS 16 million to joint projects with local authorities, NIS 7 million to employment leadership and public campaigns, and NIS 7 million to solutions developed by ministries and civil-society organizations.[25] The ministry emphasized LGBTQ people who also belonged to other minority or underserved groups, including Arab people, religious communities, older people, and people with disabilities.[25]

Cohen was social equality minister when a five-year, NIS 225 million initiative was launched to promote entrepreneurship and Arab integration into high-tech.[9] It included entrepreneurship centers, technology incubators and accelerators, and investor clubs.[9] At the time, Arab citizens were estimated to constitute approximately 20% of Israel’s population but only 3.5% of technology-sector workers; Cohen argued that greater integration would benefit both the industry and wider economic growth.[9]

In June 2021, Cohen told the Knesset committee on Arab society that NIS 9.6 billion of the NIS 10.7 billion extended five-year program under Government Resolution 922 had been allocated for use, approximately 90% of the budget.[26] She identified preparing a successor plan as a major task and called attention to areas she said had not been covered, including health, welfare, and violence against women.[26] During her ministerial tenure, she also spearheaded a NIS 30 billion five-year program for Arab society.[27]

On September 23, 2020, Cohen participated as the minister responsible for the issue in a conference on preserving and restoring the heritage of Jewish communities from the Middle East, North Africa, and Iran.[5] The gathering addressed synagogues, cemeteries, community centers, and schools, alongside the transmission of traditions to later generations and the possible creation of an international preservation body.[5]

Cohen explained her ministry’s contribution: “The Ministry of Social Equality promotes projects to document the stories of people who grew up in these countries and promote further research on the subject.”[5] The conference brought together community representatives and other participants to discuss safeguarding both physical sites and inherited traditions.[5]

In 2022, Cohen spoke at a January 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day event in the Czech Republic honoring Jewish diplomats murdered or persecuted during the Holocaust.[28] The event was organized by the Czech Foreign Ministry with Israeli ministries.[28] She also spoke at a November conference concerning the Terezin Declaration.[28]

Cohen’s campaign against the financial exploitation of older people recovered millions of shekels and preceded her ministerial work on retirement housing, employment in later life, and assistance for Holocaust survivors.[4][7] Her public service extended from municipal campaigns in Jerusalem to national programs concerning consumer protection, representation, and economic inclusion.[11][25]

In a July 1, 2013 interview, she expressed the view that political leadership required more than responding to immediate public preferences: “Sometimes you need to do what Ben Gurion once said, ‘not only what the people want but what is good for the people.’”[29] She argued that politicians should set a direction rather than optimize their decisions for votes.[29]

In 2025, a proposed diversion of funds from the five-year economic-development program for Arab society drew objections from Arab community leaders and representatives of several government ministries.[27] At a committee hearing, Cohen defended the program, saying it had exceeded 90% implementation while she was minister and that Arab women’s employment rates had risen by 18%; these figures were claims she presented in the political debate.[27]