Esty Shushan is a Haredi and Mizrachi social activist and entrepreneur, the Founder and CEO of Nivcharot – Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Women for Voice and Equality. A long-time social activist and trail-blazer, she is active in the fields of advertising, film, art and media. As a journalist writing for the Haredi press, she used a male pseudonym, after being told that “it was the only way anyone would take her writing seriously.” 

In 2012, she launched the social media-based protest movement No Voice, No Vote, calling on Ultra-Orthodox women not to vote for parties that barred women from their ranks. This movement formed the basis of Nivcharot, established in 2015 to raise awareness to issues of Haredi women’s rights and to promote the status and equal representation of women in Haredi society and politics through leadership courses, social media and advocacy.

She founded Meoravut (Engagement), a forum that sparked unprecedented discourse among Haredi women on issues of legal rights and political representation.  Her short film, Akara (Barren), released in 2014, focuses on how ultra-Orthodox society puts pressure on women to bear children. The film has been screened at film festivals in Israel and abroad.  

Esty is active in social media, managing several open and closed Facebook groups that enable an honest exchange of views on subjects such as of divorce, birth control, sexual harassment and abuse, arranged marriages and many other topics that are considered taboo in the Haredi world. She is a sought-after speaker and lectures widely on issues pertaining to Haredi women and society, and Haredi media and cinema. In 2015, she told the story of Nivcharot in a TED talk in Jerusalem. 

Esty is the recipient of the 2017 Yaffa London-Yaari Prize, awarded to extraordinary women who have established innovative projects to advance women’s rights in Israel. 

Esty grew up in Safed, in a large Haredi-Mizrachi family. The daughter of a Rabbi and posek (legal scholar) she studied at the Beit Yaakov Seminar. She is married to Maimon, a sofer stam (Jewish scribe) and manager of a Judaica internet shop, and they have four children.