TAU Alumna Brings Authentic Voice to Politics and Beyond
s a TAU student, Pnina Tameno Shete knew she had made it when a senior government official gave a guest lecture about a campaign she led on behalf of Israel’s Ethiopian community. He cited it as an example of how to effectively realize social change. Tameno Shete, who earned a master’s degree in public policy from TAU in 2018, is Israel’s first EthiopianBy Melanie Takefman born minister, heading the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration since 2020. Her appointment as minister and second-in-command to Blue and White Party Chairman and Defense Minister Benny Gantz (another TAU alumnus) is the most recent in a long line of breakthrough achievements for Tameno Shete, who arrived in Israel at the age of 3. Like thousands of her Jewish compatriots, Tameno Shete trekked through the desert with her family from her native Ethiopia to Sudan, and from there was airlifted to Israel in 1984. During the journey, people “fell like flies,” she says. “There was no burial there. It took decades for us to start talking about it.” In total, nearly 4,000 Ethiopian Jews died on their way to Israel. “People spoke about the Hercules airplanes that landed and rescued us. There was a heroic secret mission, but … the real heroes are the Ethiopian Tameno Shete at her graduation ceremony from TAU in 2018, with her children and current Jews who completed that harrowing Dean of Social Sciences Prof. Itai Sened journey.” Upon arrival, Tameno Shete fell in love with Israel and the Hebrew As a teenager, she led a protest from a very strong family in terms of language immediately. “I was more against Israel’s rejection of blood values, but my parents didn’t know Israeli than the Israelis,” she says. donations from citizens of Ethiopian anything about the law or rights.” She At the same pursued a bachelor’s degree in law time, she felt because she saw the courts as a hub of different, whether power through which she could effect I understood that if we didn't appear it was when a change. on TV screens, if Israelis didn’t hear us neighborhood No one wanted to hear about their boy threw a rock struggle to realize their rights and fight and see us, nothing would change. at her and used discrimination, she says. a racist slur, or “People said we had integration when the school difficulties. And I said, ‘These are not counselor didn’t believe that she integration difficulties. I made aliyah descent. She felt an instinctive urge and her sisters could have such high to fight for her place—and that of her at age 3. This is about the color of our grades as new immigrants. community—in Israeli society. “I come skin, about stereotypes and prejudices,
Pnina Tameno Shete, Israel’s first Ethiopian minister, wields global influence in key government position
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