At age seven, alongside her parents and many of her 12 siblings, Oshra Friedman left Ethiopia and escaped to Israel via Operation Moses.* Now a proud Israeli, Oshra has devoted her adult life to bridging socioeconomic gaps and promoting social mobility for groups on the periphery, including but not limited to Ethiopian, Russian and Arab Israelis.

“I saw my journey as an adventure to know more and learn more. We saw people dying on the way, children are starving, but I always looked up at my parents eyes and I knew that there was hope.”

Oshra received the esteemed 2014 Yaffa London Yaari Prize of the New Israel Fund for her work helping single mothers while working for Rashi’s Katzir Scholarship Fund. Her goal is to protect the basic rights and well-being of all Israelis and provide justice and equality for all makes her a true social change warrior!

*Operation Moses: refers to the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan during a Civil war that caused a famine in 1984.