Alona Barkat

Alona Barkat (Hebrew: אלונה ברקת‎; born 24 June 1969) is an Israeli businesswoman, and owner of the football team Hapoel Beer Sheva.

Alona Barkat
Barkat awarded The Shield of Honor at the 2018 Israeli Hope ceremony
Born
Alona Awka

(1969-06-24) 24 June 1969
Ashkelon, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
Alma materHebrew University of Jerusalem
Known forOwner of Hapoel Be'er Sheva
Home townAshkelon
Spouse(s)Eli Barkat
RelativesNir Barkat (brother-in-law)

Biography

Alona Akwa (Hebrew: אלונה אקווע‎) was born and raised in Ashkelon, Israel, to Yemenite-Jewish parents.[1] She is the eldest of four siblings.[2][3] At the age of 14, Barkat moved to Jerusalem to . Four years later, she returned to do national service (Sherut Leumi) in her hometown.

She then studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,[4] performing undergraduate and graduate studies in the history of the Middle East. During her studies, she met Eli Barkat,[4] then a student in Mathematics and Computer Science, and her future husband.

In 1996, she moved to Silicon Valley in the United States with her husband, who became a businessman with his brother Nir Barkat. The Barkat brothers were early investors in Check Point, and set up the venture capital funds BRM and IVN. In the eight years in which the family lived in the United States, Barkat started in the field of philanthropy. Among other things, the fund management company IVN also funded social projects, and has been active in organizations such as AIPAC and the Jewish Federation of San Francisco.

Interest in Sports

In 2004, she moved back to Israel with her family. Relations with the businessman Lonnie Herzikovic, then-owner of the football team Maccabi Tel Aviv, led her to consider entering a partnership with Maccabi Tel Aviv. She was involved in establishing a research institute at the University of Tel Aviv, together with the Rashi Foundation, where she met Eli Alaluf, CEO of the Fund at the time. Alaluf convinced her to buy the football team Hapoel Beer Sheva, which played in the second division at the time.

Hapoel Be'er Sheva

The first years

In the summer of 2007, just weeks before the opening of the season, the acquisition of the group from the previous owner, Eli Zino, was completed. Barkat became the first woman in Israel to own a football team.[5] Barkat's management team put special emphasis on a youth department, educational activities, and community connection, supporting a number of specialized centers for children of disadvantaged communities and with intellectual disabilities,[2] which receive sports training from personnel from the club itself.[6] In March 2010, the group announced their departure at the end of the season, after a number of fans of the group tried to attack the coach, Guy Azouri. Two months later, after seeing a dramatic improvement in fan behavior, she announced that she had changed her mind, and that she intended to stay with the group.

Champions of the Israeli Premier League

In May 2016, the team won the Football League Championship in football.[7] One of the biggest triumphs of the team in the Europa League was defeating 2–0 the Inter Milan on 15 September 2016;[8] as a result, the German journal Bild dubbed her "the Angela Merkel of Football", due to being the first Israeli woman owning a football club, winning the premier league and scoring huge victories in the Europa League.[9] The team has also won the 2016–2017 Championship, and the 2017–2018 Championship.[10]

Political career

In February 2019, Barkat announced she was joining the right-wing New Right[6] party, and will run for the 2019 parliamentary elections. She has received the third spot on the party's list.[11]

Personal life

She resides in Tel Aviv along with her husband Eli Barkat, and their three children.

gollark: Not in an "actively doing evil" sense, but arguably that's just a matter of where you set some arbitrary zero point.
gollark: For example, I do not really donate money to charity, despite at least having theoretically nonzero money. I feel somewhat guilty about this if I think about it very hard.
gollark: Distributing punishment based on that would make things like advertisements for charities horrible infohazards.
gollark: If you want to know about what *you* should do, then it's more reasonable to ask about the morality of actions, not people, because the people way runs into accursed counterfactuals very fast.
gollark: For that the purpose is probably something like "should you be eternally tortured", which I think the answer to is literally always "no".

References
  1. Hapoel Beersheba Owner Alona Barkat Joins New Right. The Jerusalem Post
  2. "נשים עושות דברים מופלאים, אני עשיתי את זה בכדורגל". Makor Rishon
  3. A victory for social change – The Jerusalem Post
  4. "Hapoel Beersheva becomes Israel's Leicester City"
  5. "Obstacles have been removed, Alona Barkat Hapoel Be'er Sheva acquired". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 4 July 2007.
  6. Hapoel Beersheba owner Alona Barkat joins New Right party. Times of Israel
  7. "After 40 years: Hapoel Beer Sheva has won the state championship with a 1–3 for Bnei Sakhnin". WallaSport (in Hebrew). Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  8. Internazionale vs. Hapoel Be'er Sheva 0–2. Soccerway
  9. Die Angela Merkel des Fußballs. Bild-Zeitung
  10. Alona Barkat – A female pioneer in Israeli football. BeSoccer
  11. יחד בעסקים, יחד בפוליטיקה? החבר הכי חזק במשפחת ברקת. Calcalist
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