Template:Infobox member of the Knesset

Ayelet Shaked (Hebrew pronunciation: [ajelet ʃaked]) (Template:Lang-he-n; born 7 May 1976) is an Israeli politician and computer engineer. She currently serves as a member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home and as Minister of Justice. Although representing a religious party, Shaked is a secular politician, who began her career in the Tel Aviv high-tech industry.^[1][2]

Shaked was born Ayelet Ben Shaul in Tel Aviv, to an upper-middle-class family. Her mother, a Bible teacher, was Ashkenazi (whose ancestors migrated as part of the First Aliyah from the Russian Empire and Romania in the 1880s) and voted for center-left parties. Her father, born in Iran to an Iraqi Jewish family that immigrated to Israel in the 1950s, was an accountant and voted Likud.^[3][4][5] She grew up in the Bavli neighbourhood of Tel Aviv. She identified her political awakening to 8 years old, after watching a television debate between Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres, where she supported Shamir.^[4][6] She served in the IDF as an infantry instructor in the Golani Brigade.^[4] At Tel Aviv University, she obtained a BSc in electrical engineering and computer science. She began her career in the Tel Aviv high-tech industry,^[1] working as a software engineer at Texas Instruments, later becoming manager of marketing at Texas Instruments.

From 2006 to 2008, she was office director for the office of Benjamin Netanyahu. From 2010 to 2012, she established My Israel with Naftali Bennett.

From the end of 2011, she campaigned against illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, saying that it poses a threat to the state and also involves severe economic damage.^[7] She also campaigned against Galei Tzahal saying it had a "left leaning agenda".^[8]

In January 2012 Shaked was elected to serve as the coordinator of Likud; however, in June 2012 she resigned and joined the Jewish Home. On 14 November 2012 she won third place in the party's primaries, and was placed in the fifth spot on the Jewish Home list for the 2013 elections. With the list winning 12 seats, Shaked became the only secular Jewish Home MK. She subsequently joined the Economic Affairs Committee, the House Committee, and the Committee on Foreign Workers, and served as an alternate member on the Finance Committee. She also chaired the Knesset committee for the Enforcement of the Security Service Law and the National-Civilian Service Law and the Special Committee for the Equal Sharing of the Burden Bill, as well as serving as the head of the Knesset Lobby for Infiltrators, the Lobby for Israeli Literature and the Encouragement of Reading in Israel and the Lobby for Jonathan Pollard. She serves as a member of the Lobby to Promote the Employment of Arab Women Academics, the Lobby for Female Knesset Members, Lobby for Equality in Employment, Lobby for Reserve Soldiers, the Lobby for alliances with Christians, the Lobby for the Hi-Tech Industry in Israel, and others.

She was placed third on the Jewish Home list for the 2015 elections,^[9] and was re-elected to the Knesset. On 6 May 2015, it was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to appoint Shaked as Minister of Justice as part of a plan to form a new coalition government.^[10][11][12] Shaked took office as Justice Minister on 14 May 2015.^[4]

Shaked is married with two children and lives in Bavli. Her husband is a fighter-pilot.

On June 30, 2014, Shaked posted an article from speechwriter Uri Elitzur on Facebook.^[13] The Facebook post was variously described in the media as calling Palestinian children as "little snakes" and appearing to justify mass punishment of Palestinians.^{[14][15][16][17]}

In response to the reaction to her posting of Elitzur's article on Facebook, Shaked wrote an op-ed saying that the quote from her Facebook post was portrayed inaccurately by The Daily Beast's reporter Gideon Resnick and that his misrepresentation was copied by other reporters:

"Resnick actually suggested I compared Palestinian children to 'little snakes,' and accused me of fomenting Palestinian genocide. This vilification was later picked up by several bloggers and reporters, all of whom were convinced of this frightening notion, without even a scrap of fact or truth. ... Perhaps it's his own ignorance of the Hebrew language. ... All Resnick had to do to make Elitzur's sober, legally minded discussion sound like a speech made by Hitler himself, was to cherry pick words out of context. ... As an aside, I’ll point out that a week later The Daily Beast finally removed one blatant lie from Resnick's original article, where he accused me of being the author of statements I never made."^[13]

Shaked is the recipient of the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism.^[18] In 2012, she was included in the Globes list of the 50 most influential women.^{[citation needed]}

• Ayelet Shaked on the Knesset website
• Ayelet Shaked on Facebook

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