It's hardly made headlines here, but one striking feature of the new Israeli government is the presence of several vocal, forceful and trenchantly right-wing women.
The Minister of Culture is Miri Regev, who achieved notoriety in 2012 when she described Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel as "a cancer in our body." Under pressure, she later apologised - to cancer patients. It seems she felt bad for likening their disease to something as awful as African refugees.
Regev has given an early hint of how she sees the role of the Culture Ministry. In a meeting with writers and artists, she warned she would not hesitate to withhold funding from projects which she believed "disgrace the state of Israel." She cut off money for an Arabic-language theatre in Haifa and threatened to do the same to the much-admired Elmina Arab-Jewish children's theatre in Jaffa.
When challenged by the artists, she explained it was very simple. "We (Likud) got 30 seats, you only got 20," seemingly confusing the writers and directors before her with the Israeli Labour party.
Meanwhile, at the Foreign Ministry is Tzipi Hotovely, a 36-year old Orthodox Likudnik whose inaugural address to Israel's diplomats urged them to seek international recognition for West Bank settlements. She urged them to remind the world that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews. "This land is ours," she said. "All of it is ours." As a diplomatic approach, it's certainly novel.
But perhaps most attention has gone to Ayelet Shaked, the new Minister of Justice. Her views are as unbending as the others'. But that's not why she has stood out. For while she is an ultra-nationalist, one whose opinions have been described as "quasi-genocidal", she also has movie star good looks. She is both an extremist and extremely beautiful.
This has created a conundrum for the Israeli left. On the one hand, they want to stand against her for her vile views, denouncing her for, say, her reposting on Facebook during last year's Gaza conflict of an essay by a radical settler who urged Israel to fight a total war against the entire Palestinian people, killing not just terrorists but the mothers of terrorists: "They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there." That description of potential Palestinian children, including babies and even the unborn, as "little snakes" chills the blood.
And yet, any self-respecting feminist also wants to slam the appalling sexism that Shaked has attracted - starting with the former cabinet minister who drooled that at last Israel had a justice minister "worthy of being featured on calendars" hanging in car mechanics' garages. Or the gossip column that reported on Shaked's visit to a hotel pool and lamented that she had "remained clothed."
As a result, the leaders of Israel's leftist parties have had to take time out from condemning Shaked's sinister political positions - she helped dream up the bill that would downgrade Israel's democratic character, subordinating it to the Jewishness of the state - in order to defend her from such Neanderthal attitudes. And that has blunted their opposition.
But Shaked prompts a thought that goes deeper than politics. Hebrew has two words for beauty. Yoffee refers to external good looks, while chain speaks of inner beauty. It's possible to have one without the other.
Ayelet Shaked is a reminder of the great wisdom embedded in the Hebrew language. For she is blessed with an abundance of yoffee, yet is lacking in chain. She is simultaneously gorgeous and a racist; she is a stunning bigot. She has a beautiful face, but her soul is ugly.
