Birth Date: | 20 July 1966 |
Birth Place: | Rehovot, Israel |
Office1: | Faction represented in the Knesset |
Suboffice1: | Yesh Atid |
Subterm1: | 2021–2022 |
Nira Shpak (Hebrew: נִירָה שְׁפָּק, born 20 July 1966)[1] is an Israeli soldier, civil servant and politician. She was a member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid from 2021 to 2022.
A member of the Kfar Aza kibbutz, Shpak was a career soldier. She was the first woman to reach the rank of brigade commander and commander of an operational sector,[2] and was the first woman to lead the training section of the Israeli Ground Forces.[3] After being discharged with the rank of brigadier general, she worked at the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Home Front Defense.[3]
Entering politics, she ran for head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council in the 2018 local elections.[4] Prior to the 2021 Knesset elections she was placed seventeenth on the Yesh Atid list,[5] and was elected to the Knesset as the party won seventeen seats. In May 2022 she was a recipient of the Knights of the Quality of Government award by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.[6] However, she did not contest the November 2022 elections, choosing to return to local politics.[7]