Orna Barbivai

Barbivai was born in 1962 and grew up in Afula in a family whose parents had immigrated from Romania and Iraq.[1][5] She described a childhood of severe poverty, during which her family received welfare assistance and she began cleaning work while young to help her mother.[9] Recalling the material conditions at home, she said that there had been years without furniture, tables, or chairs, and remembered feeling embarrassed when an elementary-school teacher discovered that she completed her homework on the floor because she had no desk.[9]

Her later account of growing up in Israel’s periphery emphasized differences in opportunity and access to services between peripheral communities and the center of the country.[5] She identified health care, education, and care for older people as areas in which those differences had made an impression on her.[5] These experiences formed part of her explanation of her awareness of social and regional gaps when discussing her subsequent public life.[5]

Barbivai began her military service in 1981 and recalled that she was the first person in her family to enlist.[1][5] She became an officer within her first year of service and gravitated toward personnel work because she enjoyed working with people and was interested in human resources.[5] Rather than describing her advancement as the result of a predetermined career plan, she said that successive promotions had presented opportunities to apply her abilities.[5]

She earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and humanities from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and an MBA from the University of Haifa.[10] Her professional education also included the “Turn-point” administration course for senior military officials.[3] She has three children.[1]

In May 2005, Barbivai became the first woman to head an IDF corps when she took command of the Adjutant Corps.[3] Her subsequent appointments included head of the Ground Forces Manpower Section from 2006 to 2008 and Human Resources Directorate administrator in the Manpower Directorate from 2008 to 2011.[3] These posts placed her advancement within the military’s personnel and human-resources system, the field in which she had developed her career.[1][3]

In May 2011, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz selected her to lead the Personnel Directorate, replacing Major General Avi Zamir, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the appointment.[11] Barak announced his approval of her promotion from brigadier general to major general on May 26.[1] Her formal promotion took place on June 23, 2011, when she assumed command of the directorate and became the first woman to hold the IDF’s second-highest rank.[1] She was also the first woman to serve on the IDF General Staff.[12]

Barbivai called the appointment “a clear statement of equal opportunity” and expressed pride in becoming the first woman to attain the rank.[13][1] At the ceremony, Gantz praised her professional performance and talents, while Barak characterized the promotion as an important and symbolic moment for Israeli society.[13] Barbivai expressed the hope that her appointment would be followed by those of other women officers.[11]

An INSS account, which noted that the relevant committee minutes had not been posted and relied on the author’s personal notes, reported that Barbivai addressed compulsory-service obligations and military staffing during a 2013 Knesset discussion.[14] She explained that reducing men’s compulsory service would require extending women’s service to prevent what she described as insurmountable human-resource gaps.[14] The proposal under discussion would have set service at 32 months for men and 28 months for women.[14] The IDF linked the proposed extension for women to more equal selection and placement processes, while not agreeing to immediate equalization before the legislation had passed.[14]

In December 2013, Barbivai also connected military personnel policy to Israel’s broader economy.[15] She argued that the IDF and other security services were “the engine pulling the country’s economic growth” and described their personnel as “a competitive edge by any standard.”[15] In the same discussion, she connected the development of Israeli startups with experience acquired during military service.[15] Her remarks treated the skills developed within the defense establishment as a resource with significance beyond the armed forces themselves.[15]

Her responsibilities included decisions concerning the identification of fallen soldiers and the notification of their families.[12] In a 2014 interview addressing the deaths of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, she emphasized the need to establish the facts before informing relatives and said that she could not declare a soldier dead on the basis of a WhatsApp message.[12] She also argued that the army bore responsibility for bringing soldiers home.[9] She expressed the hope that more women would reach the General Staff.[12]

Barbivai retired from the IDF in September 2014, handing command of the Personnel Directorate to Major General Hagai Topolansky.[4] At her retirement, Gantz described her as “the first female major general, but not the last.”[4] Barbivai used the occasion to argue that concern for service members should be understood as a social and national issue, and linked the broadening of recruitment to the relationship between the army and society.[4]

After retirement, she continued to address the values and incentives associated with compulsory service.[16] In 2017, she warned that increasing material benefits for designated combat personnel could generate demands for further increases and encourage an understanding of military service centered on financial compensation.[16] She was concerned that a new hierarchy of rewards could leave personnel in other important units, including soldiers performing routine security duties, feeling overlooked or discriminated against.[16] Summarizing her objection to an exclusively financial framing, she cautioned: “We must be careful not to stumble here; we must not let the narrative be economic.”[16]

In January 2019, Barbivai announced that she was entering politics and joining Yesh Atid.[17] She explained the decision through her belief in Israel and her conviction that the national agenda could and should be changed in the interests of all citizens.[17] During the campaign for the April 2019 election, Yesh Atid placed her fourth on its candidate list; after joining Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience party to form Blue and White, she was placed tenth on the combined slate.[17]

Looking back on the decision in a 2023 interview, Barbivai recalled that her son had urged her not to enter politics.[18] He had pointed to her participation in the state Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony and the broad acceptance she enjoyed after her military career.[18] She explained that she nevertheless chose political participation because “consensus is not enough” and because she had further plans for public activity.[18]

In 2020, Barbivai opposed Gantz’s decision to join Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, calling the resulting unity government “born in sin.”[5] Her objection centered on her view that participation significantly violated a campaign promise.[5] As an opposition member of the Knesset, she chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s subcommittee on IDF personnel.[5] She identified retaining personnel, managing the effects of shortened mandatory service, and maintaining the readiness of reservists as important challenges.[5]

Barbivai also advocated opening all IDF disciplines and positions to women, including combat and operational roles.[5] She argued that women’s advancement was constrained when senior appointments required experience in positions that had largely been available only to men.[5] In discussing enlistment in 2020, she cited figures of 44 percent of women and 31 percent of men not serving in the military, and argued that public debate focused disproportionately on men who did not enlist.[5] Her position thus addressed both access to particular assignments and the wider public discussion of participation in military service.[5]

In the 2021 election, Barbivai held second place on Yesh Atid’s candidate list and was among its members of the 24th Knesset.[19] In April that year, she became the first woman to chair the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[6] Its responsibilities included defense legislation, emergency preparedness, military mobilization, and oversight of the Shin Bet.[6] On assuming the chair, she described national security as encompassing governance, diplomacy, economic strength, and social solidarity, rather than defense alone.[6]

The temporary committee began its work in early May 2021, including the establishment of temporary subcommittees.[20] Barbivai herself chaired the subcommittee responsible for intelligence, secret services, and prisoners and missing persons.[20] Her parliamentary work therefore included both the personnel issues associated with her military career and the committee’s broader intelligence and national-security responsibilities.[5][20]

Barbivai served as Minister of Economy and Industry in Israel’s 36th government, whose term ran from June 13, 2021, to December 28, 2022.[2] In his inaugural address to the Knesset on June 13, Naftali Bennett named her as economy minister among the ministers affiliated with Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid.[21] She was one of nine women holding ministerial portfolios in the Bennett–Lapid government, representing 33 percent of its ministers.[22]

Her domestic economic agenda included import and regulatory changes intended to increase competition and reduce obstacles to importing goods.[23] She advocated a shift away from checking every item at the border toward greater reliance on declarations and recognized foreign standards, while retaining quality safeguards.[23] She argued that greater competition could benefit consumers and that import reform did not have to come at the expense of Israeli-made products.[23] These were policy objectives she advanced, rather than a claim that every intended consumer benefit had already been achieved.[23]

In a 2022 interview, Barbivai described opening markets to smaller importers and strengthening competition as elements of her response to the cost of living.[9] She said that her ministry had pursued tariff reductions on products including car parts, furniture, and baby goods.[9] She also cited changes to construction-approval procedures intended to shorten the time needed to obtain building approvals.[9] Her account presented these measures as policies and goals of her ministry, rather than an independent measurement of their eventual results.[9]

In February 2022, she defended government cost-of-living measures that included tax reductions, while acknowledging that the response was incomplete.[24] “The plan is partial and does not provide a solution to everything,” she said, adding that complementary plans would follow.[24] She maintained that the package offered relief particularly to working people facing a heavy financial burden.[24] She also said that she and Lapid had pressed for a fuller response for self-employed people, whose losses she said could only be assessed around February, and expressed a commitment to finding a solution for them.[24]

Employment policy formed another part of her ministerial program.[23] Barbivai said that her agenda included returning the Employment Branch to the Economy Ministry, investing in vocational training and job placement, and reducing employment gaps.[23] She emphasized improving access to training and technology-sector employment for Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities and people living in the periphery.[23] Her stated objective was to connect training with employers’ needs while also considering workers’ future earnings and opportunities for professional development.[23]

On May 31, 2022, Barbivai signed a free-trade agreement with United Arab Emirates Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri.[25] It was Israel’s first free-trade agreement with an Arab state and covered 96 percent of trade between Israel and the UAE; bilateral trade had reached $885 million in 2021.[25] Barbivai described her visit to Dubai as strategically important and said the agreement would remove barriers, encourage comprehensive trade, and promote new technologies.[25]

Her regional economic work also involved relations with Egypt.[26] Egyptian intelligence minister Abbas Kamel conveyed Egypt’s interest in expanding activity at the Nitzana crossing for imports and exports, including cement, iron, and chemicals.[26] In connection with those discussions, Barbivai was expected to visit Cairo to advance economic ties.[26] The proposed expansion concerned the practical movement of goods across the border as part of closer bilateral economic activity.[26]

In 2022, Barbivai moved to restore the position of Israeli economic attaché in Turkey and appointed Matan Safran to the post.[27] At the time, Israel and Turkey had not held an economic summit for 13 years, while bilateral trade in goods and services had totaled $7.7 billion in 2021.[27] She argued that renewing the attaché’s work could contribute to economic growth in both countries.[27] This initiative accompanied her ministry’s work on other regional trading relationships during her term.[25][27]

Barbivai also participated as economy minister in a December 23, 2021, roundtable convened by Foreign Minister Lapid to discuss his “Economy for Security” plan.[28] The meeting took place at the Institute for National Security Studies.[28] Her participation placed her economic portfolio within a discussion explicitly linking economic policy and security.[28]

In June 2023, Barbivai launched a campaign to challenge Ron Huldai for the mayoralty of Tel Aviv–Jaffa.[29] She argued that, after a quarter-century under the incumbent, the city needed “fresh blood.”[29] At the same time, she emphasized continuity in what she described as its equality, pluralism, and liberal values, presenting her candidacy as a way to preserve those characteristics while changing its leadership.[29]

Her municipal campaign addressed the high cost of living and the effects of construction on residents’ quality of life.[29] She announced her intention to leave the Knesset to concentrate on the race, and resigned the following month.[29][30] In explaining the move, she said she was leaving after five years of political activity to pursue a municipal role and to protect the city’s liberal, free, and egalitarian character.[30]

Barbivai lost the February 2024 election to Huldai and publicly congratulated him.[7] Her defeat in the mayoral contest was followed by service on the Tel Aviv–Jaffa city council.[8]

By April 2024, she was leading the council’s Yesh Atid faction, which had run with Tzipi Brand and won five seats.[8] Her subsequent municipal activity therefore continued through an elected council role rather than the mayoralty she had sought.[8]

Barbivai was selected to light an Independence Day torch in 2014 in recognition of her achievements.[17] In 2016, she received the Chaim Herzog Prize, awarded every two years by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem together with Yad Chaim Herzog.[10] At the award ceremony, President Reuven Rivlin stressed that she had earned her military rank on merit, telling her: “You were the first because you were the best.”[10]

Her career established several firsts for women within Israel’s military and parliamentary security institutions: command of an IDF corps, promotion to major general, membership of the General Staff, and leadership of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[3][6] She also continued to argue for expanding women’s opportunities beyond her own appointments, advocating access to combat and operational assignments and questioning promotion requirements tied to roles historically dominated by men.[5] At retirement, she expressed the hope that additional women would reach the General Staff.[12]

Her later voluntary work concerned girls and young women facing social and material vulnerability.[31] In December 2024, she was serving as volunteer president of The Women’s Courtyard, a nationwide organization supporting at-risk girls and young women.[31] She described its work as combining material assistance and safe communal spaces with practical skills, including financial literacy and navigating social services.[31] The objective she emphasized was greater independence and resilience, and she summarized her view of its importance by saying: “This organization saves lives.”[31]

Published assessments of Barbivai’s record as economy minister differed. One 2023 account judged that she had not succeeded in advancing significant reforms.[32] Another credited her with leading import reform, reducing medical residents’ hours, and overseeing new trade agreements and record exports.[30] These contrasting descriptions concern the scope and significance of her ministerial achievements, rather than a single agreed evaluation of their results.[30][32]