Israel’s flourishing – if often embattled – progressive civil society didn’t materialize overnight. It’s the result of the hard work of thousands of individuals striving every day to build a society that reflects Israel’s founding principles, a country infused with the best of Jewish, universal and democratic values. While there is no single person who founded this sector, there is a person who embodies it. And her name is Alice Shalvi.

Alice, a member of NIF’s International Council, is an internationally recognized educator, academician, and advocate of women’s rights. But that description hardly does her justice. And so, as her legions of fans and admirers celebrate her 90th birthday, I am so pleased to share a bit of Alice’s story with you, the NIF community that she loves so much, and has done so much to build.

I first met Alice shortly after I began to work at NIF. Our first conversation took place in Jerusalem, just after she delivered a brilliant lecture that merged Shakespeare, social justice, and Jewish text — a talk that delighted and inspired me and made me think about familiar topics in startlingly new ways. And that’s what Alice has always done, and continues to do.

She was born in Germany, and her family immigrated to the United Kingdom soon after Hitler came to power. Educated at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, she immigrated to Israel in 1949. On its own, her academic career is a remarkable testimony to her talent, brilliance, and pioneering spirit. She got her Ph.D. at the Hebrew University, and taught there from 1950 to 1990, serving as the head of the university’s Institute for Languages and Literature. She founded the English Department at Ben Gurion University.

But that’s not all she did.

Alice has played a major role in building Israel’s progressive civil society sector. She founded Pelech, an innovative and groundbreaking experimental high school for religious girls, and created a highly respected model for liberal religious education. She founded the Ohalim movement of neighborhood associations. And she was the founding Chairwoman of the Israel Women’s Network — the leading organization dedicated to advancing the status of women. There, she worked do develop a program to combat discrimination against women in Israel, and to shine a bright light on the contributions women have made in every sector of Israeli society. She founded the International Coalition for Agunah Rights. And she served as the rector of the Schechter Institute for Jewish studies.

For all of this, and for her countless other contributions to Israeli society, Alice has been awarded, well, most of the awards a person can get, including the President’s Award, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s Emile Grunzweig Prize, and, of course, NIF’s Israel Women’s Leadership award, which is now named after her. In short, Alice is one of the most prominent and powerful voices in Israel, speaking out to promote feminism, activism, and justice. She represents the best face not only of Israel, but of humanity itself. Alice, I am honored to know you, and proud to count you as a part of our movement. Happy birthday.