Israeli beauty queen gives her take on her adoptive country

MIRAH LANGER

“We are not perfect. We have all kinds of problems, but… as a black person in Israel who made aliya … and is really involved with my community, I can say: There is no apartheid.”

She repeated this while speaking at an event hosted by the SA Zionist Federation in Johannesburg this week. “I feel really offended as a black person because there was apartheid here in South Africa and it was a different story.”

Aynaw said certain Palestinian organisations latched on to the contrived comparison “because it’s really easy to take this and say lies about Israel”.

Added Aynaw: “Israel is the only country in the world to come inside Africa to save black people, and not take them as slaves.”

Referring to initiatives such as Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, Israel came to the continent “to save people, to take them to a better place, give them an education and help them”.

Aynaw has intimate knowledge of the point she makes: her own life story reflects this. She went from being an orphan in Ethiopia to moving to Israel at 12 years old, going on to flourish as an icon of Israel.

In conversation with the event’s host, psychologist Dorianne Weil, Aynaw detailed her path towards finding her place in the Promised Land. She spoke of her “happy and simple early childhood” in the village of Chahawit in Ethiopia’s Gondar Province, where she grew up. There was no electricity and she walked barefoot and owned two dresses.

Aynaw said Judaism and Zionism were fundamental to her identity. “I’ve known, since I was born, that I am Jewish and needed to be in Israel. Every child dreams to play with dolls or to be a doctor – my dream was to make aliya and live in Jerusalem.”

But tragedy hit Aynaw at a young age. Her father died when she was two years old, and her mother died when she was nine, leaving her and her older brother orphaned.

In 2004, the siblings made aliya, joining their grandparents who had already settled in Israel.

“We had learned about Israel from the bible… that Israel is the land of honey and milk. So, I thought to myself: ‘I’m going to come to Israel and it’s going to look like the chocolate factory from Willy Wonka [in reference to Roald Dahl’s novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] – everywhere will be chocolate and gold!”

Of course, when she stepped off the plane, she was shocked to see an unfamiliar cityscape with huge buildings and a fast-paced life. “Everything was new to me, but, at the same time it was refreshing: a new beginning for me.”

She and her brother were sent to boarding school. When she arrived she could not speak a word of Hebrew, but she was warmly welcomed by her teachers and classmates, who set up “Project Titi” to teach her a new word every day.

She also read children’s books, using the pictures to discern the vocabulary. Within three months, she was a fluent speaker. Within a year, she’d perfected her Hebrew reading and writing.

Aynaw says her determination was shaped by her life experience. “When you lose your parents at a young age, you become really mature.”

She set an agenda for herself: “First learn the language fast, get the best grades and then go to university.”

What wasn’t part of her plan was being crowned Miss Israel – this was hatched by her best friend. “The first thing she told me on my first day of school was: ‘You are so pretty. We need to sign you up one day for the Miss Israel audition, and you will win, and I will take the prize – the car.’”

After finishing school, Aynaw went on to serve in the army as a commanding officer. In the interim, her friend remained steadfast in her pageant plan, signing Aynaw up shortly after she finished her military service.

Her winning edge in the contest, suggested Aynaw, was that she “represented Israel as an immigrant and as an officer who, just months before, was “running with my soldiers… shooting with them in the field” – and then could switch and radiate glitz and glamour.

After being announced the winner, her first thoughts were of her mother. “It wasn’t about the beauty. It’s the fact that I made history, that I was the first black Miss Israel. I wanted her to see me and be proud of that fact because it was a historical moment for me, for Israel and for the Ethiopian community.”

Aynaw is proud of the stereotypes she broke as she became the face on magazine covers and billboards and was at the helm of advertising campaigns.

Incidentally, there was a minor impediment to her and her friend’s plan to utilise her prize car – neither of them had driver’s licences, so her brother became the lucky recipient.

At times, Aynaw is still disbelieving of her fame. She told the audience that she’d put down the phone on a White House official, who’d called to invite her to dinner with then president Barack Obama, because she thought it was a prank call.

She did get to attend the White House function, and said a highlight there was enjoying a Lechaim drink with Benny Gantz, who headed the Israeli Defence Forces at the time.Aynaw recalled panicking when she first saw him as she wasn’t sure how to salute while wearing an evening gown. But her fears were averted when he came up to her and said: “I’m so proud of you; let’s drink wine!”

Naming Shimon Peres as the leader she most admires, Aynaw said there were various Israeli politicians she held in high regard, and others not. Part of her dream for the future was to enter Israeli politics herself.

She suggested discrimination came about because Israel is a small country, yet constantly receives new waves of immigrants. However, she still would not label this racism.She recounted how, in her apartment building, people from diverse cultural backgrounds managed to communicate, despite all of them speaking different languages. Ultimately, people learned to deal with these situations, Aynaw said.

She recalled how her grandmother used to chat to their Iraqi Jewish neighbours, saying: “They don’t understand anything, but they are speaking.

“This is Israel. We are everything: We are Israeli; we are Jewish; we build a country together; we love this country and we love each other at the end of the day,” she concluded.