ISRAELI CULTURAL CONNECTIONS Presented by Beth El’s Israel Affairs Committee
Beth El’s Israel Affairs Committee (IAC) is pleased to share cultural items of interest concerning Israel each month. IAC always welcomes new members. For more information about meetings and events, please contact either Tamar Tait at TamarTait@optonline.net, or Bruce Gold at Bruces.gold@gmail.com. This month’s Israeli Cultural Connections column is presented by Roni and Michael Schiffres.
Pnina Tamanu Shata: A Woman to Watch her mother and sisters again. As a woman of color, Israel’s Pnina Tamanu-Shata has been Tamanu’s family lived for several years in an Israeli government likened to Kamala Harris in her attainment of many firsts. At age absorption center in Pardes Hanna (near Caesarea) before moving to forty, she has risen to number two on Alternate Prime Minister Benny an apartment in the central town of Petah Tikvah. Gantz’s Blue and White alliance ticket for the Knesset An excellent student, Tamanu participated in a high elections that will take place on March 23, 2021. In 2013, school program for gifted students and later served at the age of thirty-one, also breaking barriers, she became as an operations sergeant in the IDF Homefront the first female, Ethiopian-born member of the Knesset. Command. She went on to earn a Masters in Public And in May 2020, she was appointed first Ethiopian-born Policy from Tel Aviv University and obtained a law Minister of Immigration and Absorption. This cabinet degree from Ono Academic College. During this post is both a significant honor, and springboard for higher period, she also served as an instructor for at-risk office as former office holders include Shimon Peres, Ehud teens within disadvantaged neighborhoods. Barak, Ariel Sharon and Tzipi Livni. A stint as elected chairperson of the Ethiopian Tamanu-Shata’s accomplishments are particularly Israeli Student Union in 2004 launched her public impressive in light of her personal story. Born in Wuzuba, career, where she fought against discrimination a village in Northern Ethiopia, she immigrated in 1984 to Israel as part of Operation Moses. Her aliyah at age three Pinina Tamanu Shata and racism. Tamanu also enjoyed a career in journalism, holds powerful memories. Tamanu’s grandfather was פניְִָּנה תמונ שטֶַֹּׁה anchoring the “Friday at Five” news program on an Ethiopian rabbi whose family traced its roots back to public broadcast Channel 1. the legendary Abba Mahari, a famed Ethiopian Jewish spiritual In her current job as Absorption Minister, she has sought to leader. Her ancestors’ attempt in 1862 to reach the Holy Land went improve the lives of immigrants, drawing knowledge from her unfulfilled but the family retained its dream of reaching Jerusalem. Tamanu’s experience was both thrilling and traumatic. The plane— own childhood experience, by expanding their financial aid and increasing funding for immigrant Hebrew education. within which she, her father and five brothers flew—shut its doors, Whatever the political future holds for Minister Tamanu-Shata, leaving behind her mother and two sisters, whose truck broke down she is an Israeli political figure to watch going forward. en route to the airport. It would be a year before she reunited with
Beth El Celebrates March Birthdays Beth El would like to extend a “Happy Birthday!” to its members with a birthday in the month of March. If you have a March birthday, but Monica Afran Lauren Afran Stan Arkow Jesse Bartell Stephen Bartell Hannah Bases Paul Bernstein Andrew Bosworth Joan Brown Enrique Casanova Sherri Cohen Yehuda Cohen Janis Demartini Sari Dweck Noel Edelson
Erica Epstein Jordan Esrig Michael Felberg Richard Feuerstein Russell Geller Bruce Gold David Gordon Lita Gottesman Florence Graff Daniel Groner Peter Gross Ellen Gross Beth Halperin Mark Hirsh Jeff Hogan
your name does not appear on the list, we are sorry for the omission and ask that you e-mail the synagogue at info@bethelnr.org so that we can update our records. Contact
us if you do not wish to have your name appear on our birthday list. (The list reflects our adult members and post-bar/bat mitzvah children up to the age of 21.)
Barbara Horowitz Robert Jacobson Alan Kellman Shlomo Kessel Nora KlionWolloch Jennifer Klonsky Rubin Kuszel Ian Leaderman Seth Leibowitz Jay Lerman Elliot Lesser Susan Lesser Gilbert Levine Elizabeth Levine
Greg Portnoy Margery Reisfeld Jonathan Rieber Jamie Rothenberg Evelyn Rothenberg Samuel Schiller Melanie Selber Joel Siegel Deborah Solymar Jeffrey Stahl Rachelle Stern Steven Stern Pearl Sullivan Marianne Sussman Harriet Suvall
Lance Levine Shireen Lewis Michael Malina Rafael Malka Etel Malka Serge Malka Lisa Mandelker Leonard Mark Miriam Morris George Newfield Jason Newman Lillian Newman Dianne Newman Selma Parker David Pfeffer 8
Andrew Tannen Barnett Troodler Mitchell Troyetsky Charlotte Watt Zwi Weinberg Leni Wiener Sophia Wolk Arthur Wolk Ivor Wolk Allan Wolkoff Steven Young Lester Zimmerman Happy
Birthday!
