“Every functioning society needs to strive to eliminate or at least diminish discrimination and racism,” Knesset member Pnina Tamano-Shata, chair of the Blue and White party, told JNS on Monday.
Tamano-Shata, Israel’s first Ethiopian-born cabinet minister, arrived in Israel in 1984 as a three-year-old child, part of Operation Moses. Her family had fled Ethiopia on foot and were rescued from Sudan in a Mossad operation. Before entering the Knesset, Tamano-Shata worked as a lawyer and legal reporter.
Tamano-Shata entered the Knesset in 2013 as a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. During her tenure, she advanced cross-party policy initiatives, including the establishment of the Palmor Committee for the Eradication of Racism in 2015 following nationwide protests over over-policing and police brutality against the Ethiopian community.
The Palmor Committee led the Israeli government to examine racism and discrimination across all government ministries and address issues, including racial profiling by the police.
Tamano-Shata also initiated “The New Way,” a comprehensive plan to improve the integration of Ethiopian Jews into Israeli society. Among its measures, the initiative eliminated separate military service tracks for Ethiopian Israelis to promote greater integration within the Israel Defense Forces while advancing equal opportunities for Ethiopian Jewry. Her activism also helped end discriminatory policies that had restricted blood donations by Ethiopian Jews.
In 2016, Tamano-Shata received the Martin Luther King “Unsung Hero Award” from Martin Luther King III and former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
Tamano-Shata served as Minister of Immigration and Absorption under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu beginning in 2020, and continued in the role under the Bennett-Lapid government from June 2021 until December 2022.
She described to JNS the first major speech of Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz in 2019 that led her to join his party.
“I heard his address about the need for unity in Israeli society. No right, no left, he had said, Israel before everything else. Those memorable words spoke to me. I come from a very united community, a proud Ethiopian Jewish community that puts in the center of things the unity of Israel, the land of Israel and its people,” she said.
‘Fight for equality’
Tamano-Shata described how, when she was only three, walking through the desert to Sudan and was separated from her mother, who only arrived in Israel later. “Through all the hardships, what protected the spirit of this community that lost so many people on the way is the love for Israel, its land and its people. My fight for equality also comes from it. I see equality as a value,” she said.
As chair of the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, Tamano-Shata decided in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on Israel to open the committee to hostage families and fought for their rights.
“A woman who fights for her husband who is a hostage in Gaza and has to go to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and fly all over the world shouldn’t have to worry about paying a babysitter for her young children on top of it,” she said. She also dealt with the issues of war evacuees and fought for the rights of widows and families of the wounded.
Tamano-Shata passed sweeping legislative amendments for the recognition of widows in the first year of their bereavement and to make it illegal to fire family members of a soldier who fell in combat in the first year of bereavement.
Tamano-Shata played an important role in exposing the horrors of Oct. 7 to the world. In late November 2023, she organized the first conference in the Knesset with ambassadors from all over the world.
In 2024, Tamano-Shata traveled to Davos, Switzerland to bring attention to the horrors that were committed against women on Oct. 7 and the plight of hostages still held in Gaza.
“I told my story as someone who lived in a Sudanese refugee camp,” she said.
Government of consensus
Asked why she decided to stand by Benny Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff, when other Blue and White lawmakers left, she said it is a rare event to meet a politician who puts the interest of the nation ahead of political considerations.
“He proved this time and again, and most of all after Oct. 7, when we entered the government, even if we had to pay the price, and even if it were the last thing he would do as a politician,” she said.
“Benny’s entrance gave confidence to the IDF chief at the time and to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet). Even Netanyahu was taken by surprise. It gave a new spirit and the feeling that only together can we win. He didn’t make political calculations, while others stood on the sidelines and accused the government of being responsible.
“We needed to bring back the hostages, and we did it. We pushed with all our strength to bring back the women and children. We were part of the effort that brought back over 100 hostages.”
She said Gantz’s message is not about one political bloc opposing another, but about all Zionist parties joining into a broad national government, a government of consensus addressing the real issues facing the State of Israel.
“The head needs to focus on the real problems facing the State of Israel. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a very bad place because our enemies do not rest. We see Iran. It pains me to say, considering the significant work carried out by our army, our soldiers, the Air Force, the Mossad, together with our partner, the United States, that we saw at Khamenei’s funeral that the regime has not fallen and is still threatening us.
“We hear them saying they are preparing a surprise for us. The people of Israel must not let their guard down,” she added.
