Sephardic Figures

Gisèle Halimi used litigation, public advocacy, and political organization to transform debates over colonial violence and women’s legal autonomy. Born Zeiza Taïeb in Tunisia, she resisted gender restrictions within her family, studied law and philosophy in France, and practiced first in Tunis and then in Paris. She defended Algerian independence activists, most famously Djamila Boupacha, and exposed torture committed during the Algerian War. Halimi later used highly publicized proceedings, including the Bobigny abortion trial, to challenge French laws criminalizing abortion and to redefine sexual violence as a matter of public justice. She co-founded Choisir la cause des femmes, wrote autobiographical and political works, and served in the French National Assembly. Her career joined North African Jewish experience, anticolonial advocacy, and modern feminist jurisprudence.