Claris Harbon

Being a critical and political person committed to social change, joining the legal academia, where Mizrahis, and particularly Mizrahi women, are extremely under represented, teaching in clinical programs and becoming involved in grassroots organizations, aimed at promoting self-empowerment of Palestinian, Mizrahi or Ethiopian women, were "natural choices" for Claris Harbon.

In 1998, upon graduating her LL.B (Honors), Claris Harbon interned at the Public Defender Office in Be'er Sheva. From 2000, soon after joining the Israeli Bar, she became engaged in legal scholarship and practice especially regarding underprivileged minorities, involving various aspects of the law including land and property law, public housing, criminal justice, environmental, employment, administrative and constitutional law. She was one of the first clinical legal professors in Israel, and founded several programs. Claris founded in 2000 the Jaffa Community Law Program at Tel - Aviv University Law School, an innovative community-based legal program which offered communitarian legal assistance to Mizrahis and Palestinians in Jaffa.

Later, in 2006, she founded Tmura, the Israeli Legal Center Against Discrimination. Claris became active in the field of gender and women's self-empowerment, participated in numerous conferences and research on the subject, was appointed to Parliamentary Committees, joined several coalitions, published articles and poetry, taught academic courses, and became involved in numerous public interest activities in different NGOs. Claris is formerly among the founders and board members of "Itach" - Women Lawyers for Social Justice; currently holding senior positions as a volunteering board member in different NGOs, such as "Achoti" (Sister) - a feminist Mizrahi organization for underprivileged women; and was a board member in "The Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow". She founded several women's self-empowerment groups that are active to this day.

In 2007 Claris graduated with her first LL.M degree from Tel - Aviv University Law School. In 2008 she graduated with a second LL.M. from Yale Law School, where she later worked as a visiting researcher. Claris was the first of her community to apply and to be admitted to Yale Law School.

Claris is about to publish a children's book, and a poetry book. She is currently writing her Doctorate Dissertation at McGill University Law School.