After nearly 50 years of full-time voluntary work for the organisation, she is as passionate as ever about the work of this British-born world Zionist organisation and, indeed, about women's roles in the Jewish state.

"I am on the run," she told me. "It keeps me young. I am privileged that I can work 10-12 hours a day, as much as I want.

"I am very lucky. Not everyone can afford it. My husband says that I am working full-time, but without pay."

Tova's fighting spirit is as strong as ever. During the recent controversy about separate seating on Israeli buses, she said: "I don't want to be at the back of the bus and not in the middle of the bus. We want to drive the bus and show the way.

"Women can do much better than men. If women ran the world we would have fewer wars.

"When you have women directors, business improves. Women have many sides of thinking. After the 2008 economic recession, women directors had better ideas. We look at it differently.

"Women have compassion. Women can now be everywhere in Israel. In the army we have six combat pilots.

"But we are not there yet. It's not like in Scandinavian countries, but we are pushing."

Yet this seemingly militant feminism is combined with a deep attachment to traditional Judaism.

"My mother's side of the family were seven generations in the old yishuv in Tiberias," she said. " My father came to Israel in 1908 and went to Rav Kook Yeshiva to qualify as a rabbi before he became one of Israel's first metal industrialists and served in the Haganah.

"My uncle was the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Sfad and Tiberias.

"Rabbi Grossman, Chief Rabbi of Migdal HaEmek, used to tell me that his father came all the way from Jerusalem on a donkey to hear my uncle's halachot.

"My uncle was very learned. But he used to say that first you have to be a good human being, then be a Jew.

"Torah is to live in, not like now when we see the rabbis excluding women."

She added: "Every Friday night, loving Jewish husbands praise their wives, reciting the Eshet Chayil prayer which tells of the woman who decides which field to buy, the woman who plants a vineyard and who is like a merchant ship, bringing bread from afar.

"Our biblical woman had the deepest respect and love of her husband and was an equal partner in the family finances.

"Yet over the centuries women's rights have been continually eroded until today women are expected in some societies to ride at the back of the bus, not to sing in public and to walk on opposite sidewalks."

Tova has already achieved much for women's equality in Israel and is determined to do much more.

She said: "WIZO lobbied the Knesset against the exclusion of women and instigated several laws which empowered women, like laws for equal property rights, for alimony during divorce proceedings, forbidding the dismissal of women during fertility treatment and an extension of maternity leave.

"We are now promoting new legislation against sexual harassment in the workplace and preventing sexual favours in institutions, as well as to make sure there are no paedophiles in our schools."

With a father who was part of Israel's history by serving in the Haganah and manufacturing ammunition used during the War of Independence, it was natural that Tova should volunteer for work for the Jewish state.

So why did she choose the British-founded women's charity WIZO?

It chose her. As a newlywed in Herzlia, Tova - who in 1965 was proclaimed Israeli Queen of the Kitchen for her fish recipe - received a knock on her door from the honorary secretary of her local WIZO, asking if she could bake a cake.

"Can I bake a cake?" replied the Queen of the Kitchen and went along to her first WIZO meeting suitably armed with a chocolate cake.

She told me: "A group of ladies of high repute were talking about the soldiers in the north who needed warm blankets, ovens and radios. It was right up my street, what I wanted to do, not just drink coffee and bake cakes.

"I raided all the nearby houses for WIZO."

Soon after joining WIZO, Tova moved with her first husband, Cardiff-born Ralph Hadani, to Manchester where Ralph was the JNF shaliach.

There, she naturally joined WIZO and was asked by the late Rabbi Julius Unsdorfer to teach Hebrew at the King David schools.

She recalled: "We were very lucky. Manchester was a warm and welcoming community. The minute you came to shul they asked you for kiddush.

"That does not happen in other places. We lived in the city's Broughton Park area and went to Higher Crumpsall shul."

Tova and her family were in Manchester during the Six-Day War.

She said: "It was so miserable to be away from Israel then. The community told me to go back and leave my two daughters safe in Manchester."

But Tova stayed, attending all the WIZO activities and particularly remembering Dr Ephraim Jaffe and the late Maidie Fidler.

She returned to the UK in 1973 on a post-Yom Kippur War membership drive.

In Israel, she was elected to head WIZO's departments, including training, property, minorities and PR. She says: "WIZO is the most interesting organisation because all ages deal with every problem in the country.

"We are the spearhead for the government. The first incubators were in our baby home before the hospitals. The first training for nurses began in WIZO. When hospitals began training, we stopped.

"Whatever the country needed, they applied to WIZO and we started it. We are ahead of the times.

"We are not an organisation, we are a movement. We are moving. We are all the time on the go.

"When they needed in the army to take pictures from planes, we offered topography in our schools.

"We have babysitters next to the hospitals so that in times of war nurses and the staff's children can have day care centres and shelters for battered women.

" We work with minorities, like the Arabs. They come to us because it's women to women."

She told me of an Arab woman who had knitted 600 balaclavas for Israeli soldiers in the north. Tova had offered to pay her for the wool. But the Arab asked her: "And what's with my mitzvah?"

Tova said: "WIZO is women to women. It doesn't matter the religion, we all have one goal."

She is now happily remarried to her old friend Shabtai Ben Dov. They have 15 grandchildren between them. One of Tova's daughters, Tamar, lives in South Africa where she is a WIZO vice -president.

Tamar stayed in South Africa after she went there with her first husband, who was a Jewish Agency shaliach.

She said: "She fell in love with a Jewish boy there. We cried many nights before leaving our daughter in South Africa."

Not only does Tova give herself high standards of behaviour, she demands them from her friends.

She says: "You can't be friends with me if you're not doing something for someone else. What else will live after you?

"Someone who did something in their life is not dead. Everyone will remember them. By giving, you enrich yourself."

Which puts Tova at the top of the world's real rich list.

AT the age of 74, Tova Ben-Dov has just been elected world WIZO president.

After nearly 50 years of full-time voluntary work for the organisation, she is as passionate as ever about the work of this British-born world Zionist organisation and, indeed, about women's roles in the Jewish state.

"I am on the run," she told me. "It keeps me young. I am privileged that I can work 10-12 hours a day, as much as I want.

"I am very lucky. Not everyone can afford it. My husband says that I am working full-time, but without pay."

Tova's fighting spirit is as strong as ever. During the recent controversy about separate seating on Israeli buses, she said: "I don't want to be at the back of the bus and not in the middle of the bus. We want to drive the bus and show the way.

"Women can do much better than men. If women ran the world we would have fewer wars.

"When you have women directors, business improves. Women have many sides of thinking. After the 2008 economic recession, women directors had better ideas. We look at it differently.

"Women have compassion. Women can now be everywhere in Israel. In the army we have six combat pilots.

"But we are not there yet. It's not like in Scandinavian countries, but we are pushing."

Yet this seemingly militant feminism is combined with a deep attachment to traditional Judaism.

"My mother's side of the family were seven generations in the old yishuv in Tiberias," she said. " My father came to Israel in 1908 and went to Rav Kook Yeshiva to qualify as a rabbi before he became one of Israel's first metal industrialists and served in the Haganah.

"My uncle was the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Sfad and Tiberias.

"Rabbi Grossman, Chief Rabbi of Migdal HaEmek, used to tell me that his father came all the way from Jerusalem on a donkey to hear my uncle's halachot.

"My uncle was very learned. But he used to say that first you have to be a good human being, then be a Jew.

"Torah is to live in, not like now when we see the rabbis excluding women."

She added: "Every Friday night, loving Jewish husbands praise their wives, reciting the Eshet Chayil prayer which tells of the woman who decides which field to buy, the woman who plants a vineyard and who is like a merchant ship, bringing bread from afar.

"Our biblical woman had the deepest respect and love of her husband and was an equal partner in the family finances.

"Yet over the centuries women's rights have been continually eroded until today women are expected in some societies to ride at the back of the bus, not to sing in public and to walk on opposite sidewalks."

Tova has already achieved much for women's equality in Israel and is determined to do much more.

She said: "WIZO lobbied the Knesset against the exclusion of women and instigated several laws which empowered women, like laws for equal property rights, for alimony during divorce proceedings, forbidding the dismissal of women during fertility treatment and an extension of maternity leave.

"We are now promoting new legislation against sexual harassment in the workplace and preventing sexual favours in institutions, as well as to make sure there are no paedophiles in our schools."

With a father who was part of Israel's history by serving in the Haganah and manufacturing ammunition used during the War of Independence, it was natural that Tova should volunteer for work for the Jewish state.

So why did she choose the British-founded women's charity WIZO?

It chose her. As a newlywed in Herzlia, Tova - who in 1965 was proclaimed Israeli Queen of the Kitchen for her fish recipe - received a knock on her door from the honorary secretary of her local WIZO, asking if she could bake a cake.

"Can I bake a cake?" replied the Queen of the Kitchen and went along to her first WIZO meeting suitably armed with a chocolate cake.

She told me: "A group of ladies of high repute were talking about the soldiers in the north who needed warm blankets, ovens and radios. It was right up my street, what I wanted to do, not just drink coffee and bake cakes.

"I raided all the nearby houses for WIZO."

Soon after joining WIZO, Tova moved with her first husband, Cardiff-born Ralph Hadani, to Manchester where Ralph was the JNF shaliach.

There, she naturally joined WIZO and was asked by the late Rabbi Julius Unsdorfer to teach Hebrew at the King David schools.

She recalled: "We were very lucky. Manchester was a warm and welcoming community. The minute you came to shul they asked you for kiddush.

"That does not happen in other places. We lived in the city's Broughton Park area and went to Higher Crumpsall shul."

Tova and her family were in Manchester during the Six-Day War.

She said: "It was so miserable to be away from Israel then. The community told me to go back and leave my two daughters safe in Manchester."

But Tova stayed, attending all the WIZO activities and particularly remembering Dr Ephraim Jaffe and the late Maidie Fidler.

She returned to the UK in 1973 on a post-Yom Kippur War membership drive.

In Israel, she was elected to head WIZO's departments, including training, property, minorities and PR. She says: "WIZO is the most interesting organisation because all ages deal with every problem in the country.

"We are the spearhead for the government. The first incubators were in our baby home before the hospitals. The first training for nurses began in WIZO. When hospitals began training, we stopped.

"Whatever the country needed, they applied to WIZO and we started it. We are ahead of the times.

"We are not an organisation, we are a movement. We are moving. We are all the time on the go.

"When they needed in the army to take pictures from planes, we offered topography in our schools.

"We have babysitters next to the hospitals so that in times of war nurses and the staff's children can have day care centres and shelters for battered women.

" We work with minorities, like the Arabs. They come to us because it's women to women."

She told me of an Arab woman who had knitted 600 balaclavas for Israeli soldiers in the north. Tova had offered to pay her for the wool. But the Arab asked her: "And what's with my mitzvah?"

Tova said: "WIZO is women to women. It doesn't matter the religion, we all have one goal."

She is now happily remarried to her old friend Shabtai Ben Dov. They have 15 grandchildren between them. One of Tova's daughters, Tamar, lives in South Africa where she is a WIZO vice -president.

Tamar stayed in South Africa after she went there with her first husband, who was a Jewish Agency shaliach.

She said: "She fell in love with a Jewish boy there. We cried many nights before leaving our daughter in South Africa."

Not only does Tova give herself high standards of behaviour, she demands them from her friends.

She says: "You can't be friends with me if you're not doing something for someone else. What else will live after you?

"Someone who did something in their life is not dead. Everyone will remember them. By giving, you enrich yourself."

Which puts Tova at the top of the world's real rich list...