Vicki Knafo

Vicki Knafo (Hebrew: ויקי קנפו; born 1960) is an Israeli social activist. She led the 2003 single-mothers struggle against austerity decrees limiting child allotments, a policy initiated by then-finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu as part of a program to cut government spending in the areas of welfare and aid, which was aimed primarily at income support and other programs aimed at marginalized sectors of the population, such as single mothers.

The protest On July 2, 2003, Knafo set out on a march from her home in the southern town of Mitzpe Ramon to the Ministry of Finance in Jerusalem. She walked along main and side roads carrying an Israeli flag. The march, which was about , took her a week. Along the way, she was joined by other single mothers and families, and was followed closely by the media, becoming a national "cause célèbre". When she arrived in Jerusalem, she joined the single-mothers protest encampment which was set up in front of the government offices, bringing major media attention to the mothers and families there.

Following Knafo's march, other groups joined the expanding protest, including representatives of disability rights groups and the elderly. Along her way, Knafo garnered support from various social activism and interest groups, among them Ahoti, the Mizrahi feminist movement, New Israel Fund, and more. Several Mizrahi feminist from Ahoti joined specifically to protect Knafo from the police, who tried several times to curtail her march.

Increasing public pressure was applied to Netanyahu to change his plan. He made some changes, which Knafo and other protesters called "cosmetic", and rejected.

In August, Knafo and several other leaders of "the mothers' movement" went on a hunger strike. Knafo fasted for 18 days, before she agreed to break her strike in the President's residence, at his request, as he voiced support and appreciation for her struggle. However, as the protest continued, the residents in the protest encampment began experiencing divisiveness. The Jerusalem group of single mothers wanted to escalate the struggle, and create disruption by blocking roads and the like, while Knafo and Ilana Azoulay, another leader in the protest, preferred to continue protesting peacefully. On September 25, 2003, Knafo left the encampment and returned home, only to discover she had been fired from her job. She later called the protest "a carnival that accomplished nothing. People need to take to the streets."

In September 2005, her oldest son committed suicide while under arrest for theft and battery against his girlfriend. He was 25, and Knafo stated that he suffered from mental problems.

In 2011 Knafo became spokesperson for the supermarket chain Mega Bull. This turned out to be a controversial move, and she was seen by some as selling out to the "tycoons".

In January 2019, Knafo joined the cast of the Israeli version of Celebrity Big Brother.

Knafo who is divorced and has three children, is a vegan. She works at a hotel in Mitzpe Ramon.

Additional reading

Lavie, Smadar. "The Knafo Chronicles : Marching on Jerusalem With Israel's Silent Majority", Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work. Vol. 27 (3): 300-315, 2012 An Anatomy of Feminist Resistance: Rebel in the Wilderness, Henriette Dahan Kalev, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018