"Women and money are still something that doesn't stick"

In the first episode of "Money of Their Own," a documentary series airing tomorrow on Kan 11, Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, former CEO of Bank Leumi, tells of an incident that opened her eyes. At the end of a meeting at the bank, the person serving coffee asked her what it was like to be the only woman in the room. Russak-Aminoach's answer was: "What, was I the only one?". This story explains why it took time for someone who was the second and last female CEO of Bank Leumi (currently, no woman serves as a bank CEO) to understand her importance as a role model. Until then, she says, she simply charged ahead.

The deep and fascinating series created by Efrat Shalom-Danon and Osnat Trabelsi is also despairing: the data presented in it shows that if any change has occurred, it is for the worse. "But don't be pessimistic," Shalom-Danon tells me in an interview.

"Money of Their Own" is divided into three parts:

1. "Alone at the Top": alongside Russak-Aminoach, Adi Sofer-Teeni (CEO of Meta Israel), Avia Magen (former CEO of Fattal Hotels), Prof. Karnit Flug (the first and only Governor of the Bank of Israel), and others are interviewed.

2. "Independent in the Field": entrepreneurs like Eti Elishakov (Libra), Noy Hadas (Noy HaSadeh), Daniela and Alona Tzur (Seestarz), and Dr. Yehudit Richter (Medinol).

3. "The Heirs": Yafit Attias (daughter of Rami Levy), Sarit Yohananof (daughter of Mordechai Yohananof), and Julia Zaher (Tahina Al Arz).

All of them belong to a female minority that reached the peak of the management hierarchy, and in the series, they talk about the barriers they encountered along the way and how they broke through them.

Trabelsi and Shalom-Danon arrived at this series after working together on "The Elected," a documentary series (Kan 11) that dealt with the history and status of women in Israeli politics. Trabelsi (60), a film and documentary producer, is the founder of Trabelsi Productions and a former chair of the Documentary Filmmakers Forum. Shalom-Danon (48) is a film and television director and creator who has created several films, including "Free Abortion."

"When we finished 'The Elected,' we wanted to continue examining the story of women in male spaces," says Shalom-Danon. "We realized that the biggest center of power is in the economy, and that the situation of women there is very bleak. Even in politics, the situation has only worsened: when we finished working on the series, there were nine female ministers in the change government, and now there are only five. Women and money are still something that doesn't stick, and we wanted to understand why. Why do so few women reach the top of the pyramid?"

Trabelsi adds: "There is a significant issue here of a lack of legitimacy that women feel in the economic world. Women do not ask for salary raises and settle in advance for a lower salary than men in the same position. One of the sentences that stayed with me most from the series is when Eti Elishakov from Libra said that when they doubted her ability to raise money, she said directly that she could raise 40 million shekels. I said to myself: 'When have I heard a woman say such a sentence with confidence?'".

Shalom-Danon notes: "The wage gap in Israel between women and men is among the highest in the OECD. For women to climb up, they need to be goal-oriented, but when they reach the top, they discover they are alone. When there is less political power, it is hard to create change; for that, you need a critical mass."