Israeli financial daily Globes has selected Dr. Yasmeen Abu Fraiha as one its “Forty under Forty” promising young people in 2016. The prestigious group includes high-tech entrepreneurs, CEOs of financial firms, lawyers and trailblazing researchers, all under the age of 40. The newspaper believes that they will have a decisive impact on the Israeli market and will emerge as leaders in their fields over the next few decades.
But Abu Fraiha’s story is not just the story of another successful young Israeli woman. What distinguishes her is that she is a Bedouin who grew up in a family that decided to swim against the stream, shatter the rigid conventions of Bedouin society and overcome obstacles in order to integrate into Israeli society. Her family was the first Bedouin family to relocate from the southern Bedouin village of Tel Sheva to the prosperous Jewish neighboring town of Omer.
