Alona Barkat

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

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. 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, which receive sports training from personnel from the club itself. 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.

In May 2016, the team won the Football League Championship in football.. One of the biggest triumphs of the team in the Europa League was defeating 2–0 the Inter Milan on 15 September 2006; 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.. The team has also won the 2016–2017 Championship, and the 2017–2018 Championship.

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.

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.

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