YITYISH

MISS ISRAEL 2013

Statuesque and gorgeous Yityish Aynaw took the world by storm when she was crowned Miss Israel in 2013. A Black woman in a Jewish country; no one saw it coming. The story of this woman can be summed up as 'Grace in the Storm' or 'Light after the Darkest Night'.

Yityish is beautiful (both inside and out) with the magnetism of an angel. She is someone who refuses to be bogged down in a cruel world but chooses to ride the waves of life to shore instead of drowning in it. She is so full of life, that you would never guess that she had been through a rough life; she just smiles through it all.

Titi as she is popularly known was born on June 23rd, 1991 in Gondar, a city in northwest Ethiopia. She remembers her childhood as poor but very happy. Her father died when she was about 2 years old, 10 years later, tragedy struck again when her mother died. Yityish was now an orphan in a world that sometimes could be brutally unfair.

LIFE IN ISRAEL

Titi and her brother, made the 'Aliyah' (a return pilgrimage to Israel) where they joined their grandparents who already settled in Israel.

Never in her wildest dream did she expect that she would be crowned Miss Israel, nor did she think she would ever meet with the president of the United States, but life has a way of rewarding those who do not give up.

Life in Israel for 12 year old Yityish was not easy. She had to struggle to learn the language and assimilate. Titi started school and slowly things began to turn around for good, as she remained resilient, undeterred and very focused. She participated in track and field, and soon was made the class president. There was a national student film-making competition, Titi took part and surprisingly she won. Her short film, which she wrote and directed was about the story of an Ethiopian immigrant girl in Israel who tried to shy away from her heritage. She saw this first hand with some of her Ethiopian school mates who wanted to ignore their Ethiopian roots. Not so with Yityish; much as she loved her Beta- Jewish roots, she nevertheless was very proud of her Ethiopian roots and never tried to shy away from it.

SHE SHOCKED THE WORLD

When Titi graduated from high school, she joined the Israeli Defense Force for the mandatory enlistment. When she was done she got a job and was trying to find her place in the world. Then one day, it happened! The one action that would change the course of her life. A friend registered her for the Miss Israel 2013 pageant. Any other woman with no modeling experience would have been fazed but not Titi. She rose to the occasion and made history. She won the pageant, something unexpected and unheard of. A Black woman in Israel, wins Miss Israel? That was exactly what happened. She hugged her brother in tears. The two of them had made that fateful trip from Ethiopia to Israel a decade earlier after their mother passed away. Two orphans in a very unfamiliar world.

The world took notice. America's president, Barak Obama took notice and extended an invitation for her to come to a gala hosted by former Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres.

Yityish also represented Israel in the Miss Universe 2013 which was held in Russia; a long way from that Ethiopian orphan who left home for an unknown world a decade earlier.

She once made it back to Ethiopia to visit her mothers grave. The woman who told her she was born for more even though Titi was a very sickly child, her mother had reassured her and explained to her what her name meant. Yitayish is Amharic for, “looking towards the future.”

HER THOUGHTS

''When I moved to Israel, my first friend, the first girl to ever ask me if I wanted to sit next to her, told me that she was going to sign me up for the Miss Israel beauty pageant. “One day, I’m going to sign you up and you’re going to win,” she said. I never thought I would win. That was in 2004. Nine years later, that dream became a reality'.

“People don’t know too much about Israel and they see this black girl model Miss Israel speaking — I like to see the surprise on their faces,”

''I was raised by my grandmother. Nothing was handed to me on a plate. I had to work very hard and long to achieve things in my life. I felt a responsibility to prove myself in everything I did and to improve myself as well''.

''Martin Luther King fought for justice and equality, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I want to show that my community has many beautiful qualities that aren’t always represented in the media. Israel is a multicultural state. We’re diverse and we come from different countries, so we need to show that outwardly.''