(1972-09-20) 20 September 1972 (age 51) Haifa, Israel
Keren Barak (Hebrew: קרן ברק, born 20 September 1972) is an Israeli lobbyist and politician. She was a member of the Knesset for Likud from 2019 to 2022.
Barak later worked as a Knesset advisor,[1] and as a lobbyist for several companies, including Cellcom and the Port of Haifa.[2] In 2018 she made the news as the result of a run-in with Likud MK Yoav Kish in a Knesset debate on child custody in which Kish claimed she had threatened him.[3]
Barak was placed thirty-second on the Likud list for the 2009 elections,[4] but the party won only 27 seats. In 2013 she was forty-seventh on the joint Likud Yisrael Beiteinu list,[5] which won 31 seats. However, after being placed twenty-fourth on the Likud list for the April 2019 elections,[6] she was elected to the Knesset as Likud won 36 seats. She was re-elected in September 2019 and 2020.
In 2020 Barak attacked two fellow Likud MKs, Osnat Mark and May Golan, on the Knesset floor, saying "You [Golan] are not worth the heel on my shoe. Not you, and not the retarded blonde [Mark]." Barak's office initially denied the conversation had occurred, then when confronted with the recording assailed her colleagues for providing it to the press and airing "dirty laundry."[7] She was re-elected in 2021, but lost her seat in the 2022 elections after being placed forty-eighth on the Likud list.