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Ethiopian-born Knesset member battles discrimination

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Ethiopia-born Knesset member Penina Tamanu-Shata speaks about her fight against discrimination, saying that she decided to be "the voice for the weaker sectors of the population."
A supporter of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid (There's a Future) party hugs Ethiopian immigrant and party candidate Penina Tamnu-Shata (facing camera) as they celebrate exit poll results at the party's headquarters in Tel Aviv January 22, 2013. Israel's parliament, long heavy with retired generals, is getting a new look, with a freshman class that includes two youth protest leaders, an Ethiopian immigrant, a high tech millionaire and more women than ever. Picture taken January 22, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (ISRAEL -

Whenever Knesset member Penina Tamanu-Shata of the Yesh Atid Party is asked to chair a debate in the Knesset, an image of herself as a barefoot 3-year-old comes to her mind, moments before she was extracted out of the desert in Sudan and put on a Hercules jet, on her way to Israel. Even now, about 30 years later, as she fills the symbolic role of deputy speaker of the Knesset, the memory of that event underscores the long road she has traveled and the many battles she has waged on her way to success. At just 33, she is one of the youngest members of the Knesset, but she had already built a career for herself as a lawyer and a journalist.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, she said that when she was first elected to the Knesset in 2013, she was advised to stay away from issues concerning the Ethiopian community. That way, she was told, she would not be limited to a particular niche and be branded as someone who deals exclusively with ethnic issues. Tamanu-Shata refused. She had her own agenda. She wanted to make sure that the voices of invisible people in society would be heard, and that included the Ethiopian community. She wanted to create a more egalitarian society.

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