Erella Shadmi (Шаблон:Lang-he) is an Israeli sociologist and peace activist. She previously worked for two decades for the Israel Police.
Career
Shadmi was born in Tel Aviv.[1] Whilst at school she attended left-wing demonstrations and became a peace activist. She then studied communications at university.[1] Despite her activism giving her a critical attitude towards the Israel Police, she decided to join in 1970 and rose to the position of colonel.[1][2] In an interview with Al-Monitor, she criticised the sexual inequalities she experienced and credited two commissioners (Herzl Shafir and Shaul Rosolio) for their respect of women.[1] She also commented in a book chapter that the police force could tolerate her pregnancy but not her lesbianism.[3] In 1996, she co-edited a history of the police force.[2]
After two decades in the police, Shadmi left and became a sociologist heading the Women and Gender Studies department at Beit Berl College.[1] She co-edited books on Israeli lesbianism and Women in Black.[2] She studied how Israel's Zionist and patriarchal society does not tolerate lesbians.[4] She also resumed her peace activism, joining Women in Black and Ahoti – for Women in Israel.[1][5] In 2012, Shadmi published Fortified land: Police and policing in Israel, which documents how the police contributes to the formation of Israeli nationhood by enforcing hegemony and targeting minority groups such as anarchists, left-wing demonstrators, poor people and Russians.[6]
