Israel’s Bold New Queen

March 13, 2013 10:26 AM

Ethiopian-born Yitish Aynaw is the first black woman crowned Miss Israel.

You can learn a lot about the face Israeli society has tried to put forward by the faces its judges choose each year. In 1952, at the height of tensions between Israel’s European veterans and Middle-Eastern Jewish newcomers, Yemen-born Ora Vered became the first Miss Israel of Middle-Eastern Jewish descent. In 1993, in the midst of Israel’s tidal wave of Soviet immigration, Kiev-born Jana Khodriker won, and in 1999, the peak of Israel’s optimism that Arab-Israeli peace was imminent, judges crowned Rana Raslan the first Arab Miss Israel.

posted by gertzedek (46 comments total)

That was a well-done article, and she sounds wonderful.

I'm sad that I didn't have time to visit the historical towns of the Beta Israel when I was in Ethiopia about 2 years ago. We decided to hike through the back country of Tigray instead. I know it was the right choice - especially since from everything I heard there isn't much left for a foreigner with no Ethiopian connection, and that it was kind of tourist trap-y - but it's still unfortunate. I have a magen david with the lion of Judah that I got in the area which never fails to spark conversation, and to see the resting place of the Ark was moving.

I don't know that the area was tourist trap-y, but that was the advice I was given. And I understand that the Ark may not be in Ethiopia, but wevs
posted by Lemurrhea at 10:46 AM on March 13

Good for her. A beauty queen who'd previously "ended up a military police commander responsible for 90 rowdy soldiers" is pretty much impossible to imagine in the USA. And if the judges use the pageant to poke at their society's worst racism, so much the better. But given the post's pull quote about how the pageant reflects current Israeli social concerns, I find it surprising that Tablet didn't also mention in this paragraph...

Aynaw’s win comes after a year of rekindled accusations of racism toward Israel’s Ethiopian Jewish community. Ethiopian Jews took to the streets in January 2012 to protest after Israeli landlords in a low-income southern town refused them rent. And a month before, Ethiopian Jewish spiritual leaders made noise after Israel’s rabbinate announced it would phase them out because their customs run against normative Orthodox Judaism.

...the recent revelations about forced sterilization of recent Ethiopian immigrants. It is a story about a recent Ethiopian immigrant, after all. I'd bet many Israelis are seeing her win at least partly in light of that story.
posted by mediareport at 10:52 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]

I'm surprised the 'we Ethiopian [jews] don't have the big nose' comment didn't get her in trouble, but maybe it was a retaliation to the woman who said she wasn't classically beautiful.
posted by whatgorilla at 11:33 AM on March 13

Oh dear. After reading the earlier beauty pageant posting, now I'm wondering just what sort of un-Kosher business this young woman had to go through to win.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:43 AM on March 13

We Sparbers moved to Minnesota in the 60s. They adopted me, bringing into the world the first Irish, blue-eyed Sparber. Then my uncle married a red- haired second generation Irish-American, and they had a son. Then my brother married a woman of Irish extraction, and they had two sons. He just had a third with his current girlfriend, a Thai woman.

I am always glad when public representations of Jewishness stray from the cliche, but mostly because we Sparber's have strayed so far. We have our own enclave if blue-eyed Irish Jews, and we're now working on other ethnicities.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:46 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]

I am always glad when public representations of Jewishness stray from the cliche,

But public representations of what it means to be Israeli remain unflinchingly cliched. Bold for Israel would have been to select a non-jew as Miss Israel. An Arab Miss Israel would signify a real change. This is just cosmetic.
posted by three blind mice at 12:02 PM on March 13

As the post notes, there was a previous Arab Israeli winner in 1999
posted by atomicstone at 12:07 PM on March 13 [11 favorites]

Rana Raslan
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:10 PM on March 13

I/P* threads never go well.

*Israel/pageant
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:15 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]

She's stunning.
posted by bearwife at 12:25 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

three blind mice: "An Arab Miss Israel would signify a real change."

RTFP
posted by gertzedek at 12:25 PM on March 13 [12 favorites]

A welcome change from papal buzz, although that's turning out to be mildly interesting.
posted by Currer Belfry at 12:35 PM on March 13

I wait for the time when there will be Jewish beauty queen in one of the Middle East Arab countries.
posted by Postroad at 12:41 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]

Living in DC, I have come to the conclusion that Ethiopian women are, by population, naturally the most beautiful women on the planet. If they continue to emigrate around the world, I would not be surprised by an all-Ethiopian sweep of national beauty pageants in some near-distant future.
posted by oneironaut at 12:45 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

I wait for the time when there will be Jewish beauty queen in one of the Middle East Arab countries.

Renee Dangoor in 1947. Her name and picture are Iraqi shorthand for the Era Before The Fall.
posted by ocschwar at 1:36 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]

I assume Renee was a queen prior to Israel becoming a state, and previous to the 800,000 Jews booted out of Arab lands. But on a happier note:

"Israel’s newly crowned Miss Israel, the first Ethiopian-born Israeli to win the title, received an invitation to meet with President Barack Obama during his visit next week, and said Wednesday she planned to tell him he has been her role model and inspiration.

Yityish “Titi” Aynaw, a 21-year-old from Netanya who came to Israel at age 12, was chosen Miss Israel 2013 two weeks ago .
!

Obama’s success, she said Wednesday, had shown her that “everyone can reach the top,” no matter what their creed or skin color. Like the president, she added, she was raised without her parents, by her grandparents."
posted by Postroad at 1:40 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]

We Sparbers moved to Minnesota in the 60s. They adopted me, bringing into the world the first Irish, blue-eyed Sparber.

I'm a green-eyed, full-blooded Irish American convert. Always nice to meet a fellow Hebernian!
posted by Pistache at 1:41 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]

I have red hair and grey eyes, and I'm Orthodox (no converts in my ancestry that I know of). My favorite story ever is when I went in to a new boss for time off, and his phone rings in the middle of the conversation. He listened for a second, then said to the caller, "I'm gonna have to call you back. The Irish Catholic girl just asked for Shavuos off."
posted by Mchelly at 1:48 PM on March 13 [13 favorites]

We also have no converts in my family as far back as we can go, but we're all a bunch of fair to red-haired blue/grey-eyed, pale as the moon Jews.

But thankfully we've added some Koreans in the last 2 decades, so we're definitely branching out.

That said I'm so proud of Yitish and know she will bring the problems in the Ethiopian-Israeli community (or the problems of the other communities, esp. haredi, with the Ethiopian-Israeli community) to the fore.
posted by Sophie1 at 2:02 PM on March 13

I assume Renee was a queen prior to Israel becoming a state, and previous to the 800,000 Jews booted out of Arab lands.

If you're going to snark, you should probably act like you know when the state of Israel was declared.

I think you're moving the goalposts, though. You were trying to use the lack of a Jewish beauty queen elsewhere to demonstrate that Arab countries have always been irredeemably hostile to Jews. But having failed in that, you can't then decide that it was all hunky dory until 1948 to try and salvage your point. It's simultaneously possible for a) Iraq to have a Jewish beauty queen, b) the situation of the Jewish community in Iraq to have been deteriorating for some time and c) the situation to have become rapidly worse during 1948.
posted by hoyland at 2:12 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

I mildly alleviate my dislike of beauty queens in her favour and send big props to the Sparbers.
posted by Segundus at 2:15 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

I can't believe that nobody has quoted Song of Songs yet:

Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.

posted by Joe in Australia at 2:18 PM on March 13 [10 favorites]

I assume Renee was a queen prior to Israel becoming a state, and previous to the 800,000 Jews booted out of Arab lands

Yes. And when Iraqis mention her, it's with the clear implication that the expulsion of Iraq's Jews was a crime and a blunder, one that should be undone, if possible.
posted by ocschwar at 2:21 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Sophie1: "pale as the moon Jews"

Wait, there are moon Jews? That's a bit further away than Ethiopia.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:17 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]

The Irish Catholic girl just asked for Shavuos off."

:D :D Hilarious. :D :D
posted by zarq at 3:44 PM on March 13

Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem

That's so perfect. And then the curtains of the tent, nudge nudge....such a great odd sexy poem stuck in the middle of the Bible.
posted by mediareport at 3:58 PM on March 13

Jews used to be stereotypically depicted with red hair. I think the standard costume for Judas in the old mystery plays was a red wig/beard and a hooked nose; and Dickens describes Fagin's face as being "obscured by a quantity of matted red hair." Here's an article on hair from the old Encyclopedia Judaica which gives actual percentages among many Jewish populations of the time.

The genotype must go way back, because Esau (the brother of Jacob, who was the father of the founders of the Twelve Tribes) is described as being "red"; since he founded the neighbouring nation of Edom (which means "red") it's likely that this was a reference to his hair and not his complexion at birth. King David is also described as "red, with beautiful eyes". It might mean that he had a reddish complexion, but the reference to eye color makes me lean towards interpreting it as hair color.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:20 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Wait, there are moon Jews?

The real Thirteenth Tribe! Teach the controversy!
posted by benito.strauss at 4:30 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

Beta Israel

I hope to one day be part of a group that has as cool sounding a name as that.
posted by rosswald at 6:47 PM on March 13

Apparently they had problems with migrating to Israel 2.0. Following the public release it was discovered that many had installed the unofficial extension "Judaism 2.0", which was unsupported. Some quick development work and the hiring of new administrators has officially made these branches compatible, but management has warned that the servers will not support forked versions indefinitely.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:16 PM on March 13

Apparently they had problems with migrating to Israel 2.0. Following the public release it was discovered that many had installed the unofficial extension "Judaism 2.0", which was unsupported. Some quick development work and the hiring of new administrators has officially made these branches compatible, but management has warned that the servers will not support forked versions indefinitely.

Ha. That's a great encapsulation of the thesis of Gershom Gorenberg's excellent new book, The Unmaking of Israel.
posted by mediareport at 8:09 AM on March 14

rosswald: "Beta Israel

I hope to one day be part of a group that has as cool sounding a name as that"

It's not that cool, they get bullied by the Alpha Israel a lot.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:10 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

Mediareport: Hah! I suppose it can be read in many ways. I was actually referring to the integration of Ethiopian religious leadership and practices into the Israeli Rabbinate, which has been awkward.

Incidentally, as mentioned in the same Wikipedia article, the charges of forced sterilisation have been debunked. The original claim was that some women en route to Israel had been treated witha long-lasting contraceptive, without having been properly informed. This isn't sterilisation but would still be a breach of medical ethics, if true. The people who would have to have been involved (from several different organisations) deny having forced the injections upon their patients in Ethiopia, in transit, or in Israel; and there is peer-reviewed evidence from years ago showing that the use of Depo Provera is popular in sub-Saharan Africa because it is "suitable for covert use" by "women of low-bargaining power": i.e., it is a deniable way for them to avoid pregnancy in a culture that values female fertility. PDF, and writeups by CAMERA and Elder of Ziyon.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:06 PM on March 14

Wow, I can't believe you're claiming the charges have been "debunked," Joe, based on a strangely misleading Wikipedia edit. From your link:

They also clarify that the women were not "forced" into doing it but were uninformed about their options and felt pressured into it.

Being "uninformed about your options" and "feeling pressured" does not equal being "forced"? Um, ok. Haaretz has been all over this story, Joe; for folks still following along, here's the first paragraph of the story I linked (sadly now behind a paywall):

Health Ministry director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel's four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.

You're fudging like mad, Joe, if you're seriously claiming it has been "debunked" that Ethiopian women were injected with long-lasting birth control drugs without their informed consent.

Is that what you're claiming? If not, you're playing word games.
posted by mediareport at 6:21 PM on March 14

I can't believe I have to do this, but even the source cited in Joe in Australia's Wikipedia-based "debunking" - an opinion piece in Haaretz, not one of the articles that helped expose the practice - has this to say*:

Yes, indeed, the television story and the research on which it was based, found evidence that Ethiopian Jewish women, both while in transit in Addis Ababa preparing to emigrate, and after they arrived in absorption centers in Israel, were strongly encouraged to use Depo-Provera as a form of birth control. In Israel and other Western countries, this birth-control method tends to be restricted to those who are not mentally competent or responsible enough to take a daily birth-control pill. These Ethiopian women were clearly not encouraged strongly enough to consider other means of family planning, both when they began the injections in Ethiopia, and certainly later after they immigrated to Israel, their family planning practices should have been reassessed, not automatically continued. And certainly there was not enough careful examination of each individual medical case, causing suffering among those women with medical conditions exacerbated by the Depo-Provera.

She goes on to admit the possibility that some women were told they couldn't become citizens without getting the birth control shots:

As for those who suffered from negligent treatment in the past, it is appropriate for each women’s stories to be taken seriously and investigated, and if, at any point they were told that their immigration depended on receiving a birth control injection, that person or agency be held responsible. At the very least, these women are owed the respect of an apology; at most, compensation for their pain suffering if they received Depo-Provera for years and truly didn’t understand they had a choice about it.

This is very far from a "debunking," Joe, and if you're at all intellectually honest, you should retract that statement. There's a lot of other garbage in that opinion piece, like this bit:

It is insulting to the intelligence of Ethiopian women to believe that they did this for years at a time against their will. Certainly, if there was a nefarious plot to stop them from having babies, there would have been a more efficient way to do it.

WTF? What sort of "more efficient" way is there to stop Ethiopian women from having babies in Israel than to tell them they can't live in Israel without taking birth control shots? I'd love to know. Again, the issue is complete lack of informed consent coupled with what some of the women claim were not-very-veiled threats. To turn that into "this has been debunked" is the worst kind of dishonesty in argument. Nice try, Joe.

*if you can't get the full version of this muddled, conflicted opinion piece with that link, Google "Ethiopian women and birth control: when a scoop becomes a smear," which worked to get the full piece as the first result.
posted by mediareport at 6:57 PM on March 14

Oh my goodness. I linked to Wikipedia because I thought it would be convenient for you. Read the last two links; they link to dozens of refutations including a retraction in Haaretz itself. You said sterilisation, but I was too polite to call you directly on your dishonest characterisation of temporary birth control as sterilisation, and refrained from attacking your integrity because I presumed that you were merely unaware of the many followups to the original story. And this is your response? To accuse me of acting in bad faith?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:09 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

Again, for the folks following at home, Joe's "retraction in Haaretz itself" link is the same one I linked in the comment just above his - that is, it's an *opinion piece* Haaretz published in addition to its solid reporting of this story, and is not only not a "retraction" at all, but also itself clearly states "it is appropriate for each women’s stories to be taken seriously and investigated."

Again: the piece Joe is holding up as a "retraction" is an opinion column that itself includes a direct acknowledgement that the accusation that Israeli officials threatened Ethiopian women by telling them they couldn't become citizens if they didn't get the shots may in fact be true and should be investigated.

Now, I suggest this opinion piece Joe is dishonestly painting as a retraction is an anomoly in the Israeli press, since no one else I've seen has questioned the basic facts that led to the official statement that immigrant women must now be sure to get informed consent before being given birth control shots. But even if it's not, Joe's characterization of it as a "debunking" and a "retraction" is ridiculous. It is not a retraction of Haaretz's reporting. Joe is being fundamentally dishonest in his comments here.

I'd respond to ocschwar, but I have no idea what s/he is talking about.
posted by mediareport at 8:39 PM on March 14

Here's a reproduction of the article. I suppose I shouldn't have called it a retraction, because Haaretz itself never claimed that Ethiopian women were being sterilised; it confined itself (reproduction of article) to saying that they had been given Depo Provera. Which nobody had ever denied, as far as I know.

The article describes your claims as a smear. It denies the truth of what you are saying. It is a refutation of it. I think it should have been made more prominently than in the opinion pages, but here's the money quote:

It is insulting to the intelligence of Ethiopian women to believe that they did this for years at a time against their will. Certainly, if there was a nefarious plot to stop them from having babies, there would have been a more efficient way to do it.

I believe the women who told their stories to Gal Gabbai. I also believe that the vast majority of the Ethiopian women who received Depo-Provera were aware it was birth control and received it willingly, wanting to be in control of deciding when to get pregnant. And some of them - it is unclear how many - preferred being injected at a clinic rather than having to take pills daily in the presence of other family members - husbands or mothers or in-laws - who might disapprove of that decision. I also believe that those who did not want to receive the shots and truly wanted to become pregnant were smart enough to stop receiving them.

Have you read the other links I supplied yet? Because they have actual interviews with the people involved, an actual link to the original documentary, actual studies of birth control among Ethiopian women, and all sorts of actual data. Instead of, you know, a smear.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:09 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

[Comment deleted. Joe in australia and mediareport, maybe it's time for you guys to take this off-thread. At any rate, please just link to articles instead of pasting the whole thing here.]
posted by taz at 9:59 PM on March 14

Sorry about that, mods. The problem is that Haaretz has a paywall, so linking directly is difficult.
posted by mediareport at 10:05 PM on March 14

Obama to dine with first black Miss Israel, but not without criticism
posted by homunculus at 1:46 PM on March 15

In other news: MKs join hundreds of women praying at Western Wall, defying law
posted by homunculus at 2:07 PM on March 15

In other news: Bar Refaeli's Israel Ad Reignites IDF Military Service Controversy

Is Bar Refaeli a Threat to Israel’s Image? The answer, according to the IDF, is yes
posted by homunculus at 2:30 PM on March 18

Q&A: Miss Israel Titi Aynaw

(and after meeting the President of the USA)

Miss Israel Titi Aynaw Gets 'Wildest Dreams' Meeting With Barack Obama
Shimon Peres Introduces Trailblazer as 'Our Queen of Sheba'

Wikipedia on the Queen of Sheba.

It's rather an apposite description, because she's a queen; she comes from Ethiopia (which is identified with Sheba); and she has met the USAn President, who is as wise and powerful as King Solomon. So a nice turn of phrase.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:10 PM on March 23

In thematically-related news, Lina Makhoul has won Israel's The Voice competition. [video] She's reportedly a Christian Arab from Acre, although someone in these comments says that she's Lebanese.

Some more performances.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:34 PM on March 23

Ruby Hamad complains about The hypocrisy of a black Miss Israel, but the Backspin blog points out that

These women literally walked a long walk to get to where they are. And while not everybody’s going to become a beauty queen, an ambassador, or a member of Knesset, they are indeed sources of pride and inspiration for the Ethiopian community, Israel, Jews around the world, and women in general.

Why negate their well-earned accomplishments simply because Israel isn’t perfect enough for Hamad?

posted by Joe in Australia at 1:22 AM on April 4