It's international women's day today. Last year I ranted about the state of women in the global financial industry.
This year, under the most fascist, right-wing government Israel has ever known, I'm tired of ranting. Instead, I want to celebrate one particular Israeli woman, Ilana Dayan. She is an investigative journalist, a dying breed - she broadcasts about a subject after actually checking her facts. She heads the longest-running news magazine program on Israeli TV, “Uvda,” which literally means fact.
Five anecdotes on Ilana Dayan:
When she arrived to the US to interview president Barack Obama, US border control wouldn't let her in. They also didn't believe her when she said she came to interview the president. Only after showing the official letter from the White House was she allowed in.
She has a doctorate in law from Yale University.
When Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to close the public broadcast channel, channel 11, for being too free thinking, she protested, and gave an impassioned speech, despite being on a competing network. (she broadcasts on channel 12).
Her first appearance on TV was in 1979, as a teenager asking pertinent questions about the Israel-Egypt peace agreement.
My personal favorite quote: "I am only a perfectionist when I can afford to be one."
Below is a video of her beautiful acceptance speech made on Feb 28, 2024, when she received a prize from the Peres Center of Peace and Innovation celebrating forty years of brave journalism. The speech is in Hebrew but YouTube enables you to get a pretty decent simultaneous translation to English.
Ilana thanks many people. At the end she gives special thanks to her husband, the father of her three children, who makes it all possible.
My new book is about a woman who manages a thriving career, while taking care of her elderly parents and her two teen aged children. She is divorced, and she believes that she has met and lost the love of her life. But, as it turns out, a second chance at love is just around the corner…
