Yityish Titi Aynaw

Aynaw was born in Ethiopia’s Gondar region, and her first name, Yityish, means “a look to the future” in Amharic.[1][5] Her mother spoke to Aynaw and her older brother about Israel, and the children dreamed of making aliyah.[6] Recalling her mother’s importance in their lives, Aynaw said, “My mom was a strong woman. She was like a mom, a dad — everything.”[6]

Both parents died during her childhood, and Aynaw and her brother stayed with their maternal aunt before immigrating to Israel.[5] They subsequently joined their maternal grandparents in Netanya.[6] Her aunt later immigrated to Israel as well.[5]

Learning Hebrew was, in Aynaw’s recollection, the greatest challenge of her move to Israel.[4] She credited a friend named Noa with helping her adapt to the unfamiliar language and society.[2] Rather than attending an ulpan, she learned Hebrew through immersion in the Israeli school system; she recalled learning to speak it in approximately three months, while reading and writing took more than a year.[4] She later credited her integration partly to attending the regular school system rather than separate classes for Ethiopian students.[7]

Aynaw grew up with her grandparents in Netanya and attended the religious Hadassim youth village.[5]

Aynaw entered the Israel Defense Forces in September 2009 and served in the Military Police, where she became an officer.[8] Her training included the Amir preparatory course and an NCO course, after which she commanded two course cohorts.[8] She later returned to command a course for security inspectors, and her final role was deputy company commander at Bahad 13.[8]

Describing her three and a half years of service, Aynaw said she trained and supervised soldiers assigned to checkpoints to Jerusalem.[4] She recalled being the only woman in her platoon and said that, by the end of her service, she had approximately 300 men under her command.[4] She became Miss Israel four months after leaving the army.[4] During a subsequent appearance in Los Angeles, she emphasized that military experience: “Don’t think I am just a beauty queen,” she said, adding, “I was a commander in the Israeli army.”[6]

After her discharge, Aynaw ran a fashion store.[1] A friend entered her in the Miss Israel competition, although she had no previous modeling experience.[9] On February 27, 2013, a panel of judges awarded her the crown at the International Convention Center in Haifa, making her the first Ethiopian-Israeli winner of the pageant.[1]

In her acceptance remarks, Aynaw emphasized the importance of the Ethiopian community having its first beauty queen and of showing Israel’s many ethnic groups and “many colors” to the world.[2] She also said that she wanted to represent all Israelis rather than focus exclusively on Ethiopian Israelis, and that representing Israel internationally was an honor.[9] She hoped to use modeling to change perceptions of dark-skinned models and expressed an ambition to become Israel’s first Ethiopian television host.[9]

During the competition, Aynaw identified Martin Luther King Jr. as one of her heroes.[1] She connected his struggle for justice and equality to her own wish to show positive qualities of her community that she felt were not always represented in the media.[1]

In March 2013, Aynaw attended an event at President Shimon Peres’s residence during President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel.[3] Before the occasion, she described Obama as an inspiration whose rise showed that determination could overcome stereotypes.[8] She was among 120 guests at the event, where Peres introduced her to Obama as “our modern Queen of Sheba.”[3] Aynaw later recalled being surprised by the initial contact from the White House and taking private English lessons beforehand because she was nervous about communicating at the event.[3]

Later in 2013, Aynaw returned to Ethiopia to help arrange aliyah for a maternal cousin, his wife, and their four children.[5] She said she sought assistance from the Miss Israel pageant director and that Israel’s Interior and Absorption ministries helped expedite the necessary approvals.[5] During the visit, she accompanied extended family members on their immigration journey and was recognized in Addis Ababa as Miss Israel, with people also referring to her meeting with Obama.[5]

The journey brought Aynaw back to her childhood home and her mother’s grave in Gondar.[5] She described the visit as emotionally difficult and said that renewing her mother’s gravestone allowed her to mourn and speak openly about grief she had largely kept unspoken for years.[5]

Aynaw represented Israel at the Miss Universe competition in Moscow in 2013.[3][10] Reflecting on the experience, she described friendships with contestants from Malaysia and Indonesia.[3] She also recalled that Miss Syria visited her hotel room and said she would be glad to be her friend privately, although she could not be photographed with her.[3]

Her international public appearances included visits to New York, Washington, D.C., and California in 2013 and 2014 to meet fans and represent Israel.[1] In 2014, she joined a four-city American tour with the Rev. Ronald V. Myers, who invited her as part of an effort to connect Black Christians with their Hebrew roots.[6] At the Little Ethiopia Cultural and Resource Center in Los Angeles, she was honored with a traditional Ethiopian dance performance.[6]

In 2013, Aynaw studied political science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.[10] After winning Miss Israel, she worked as a model and represented brands including Golf and Intima in advertising campaigns.[3] She also gave talks about her life in the United States and said she had spoken at dozens of colleges, including Harvard and Yale.[3]

In a 2017 interview, Aynaw discussed a U.S. college-campus advocacy tour organized with Jewish National Fund and Media Watch International.[4] She described telling her life story as a way to help audiences understand Israel and regarded the tour as an opportunity to give back to the country that had given her a new life.[4]

By 2025, Aynaw was working toward a television program focused on social issues and had studied coaching to develop her ability to communicate and influence.[11] She also described organizing children in her Netanya neighborhood for group runs.[11]

Aynaw’s 2013 victory established a first for Ethiopian-born women in the Miss Israel pageant, and she understood the title as carrying a responsibility to represent her community.[9][2] She hoped the win would demonstrate Israel’s diversity and encourage Israelis to see positive aspects of the Ethiopian community.[7] In discussing the modeling industry, she said there were too few dark-skinned models in Israel and linked her own work to broader visibility for Ethiopian and Black women.[2]

Her public appearances combined discussion of her Ethiopian background with her experiences of Israeli schooling, military command, and international representation.[4][6]

After winning Miss Israel, Aynaw established Project Titi to provide enrichment activities for children whose families could not afford them.[3] She partnered with the CEO of the Netanya Foundation and traveled to the United States to raise funds.[3] She later described the project as operating in the Netanya neighborhood where she grew up and serving children whose parents could not afford extracurricular activities.[4]

The project’s activities included basketball, tutoring, and jewelry-making lessons.[4] Aynaw said the initial purpose was to keep children occupied and away from trouble, but that she subsequently saw participants begin to improve in their studies.[4] In 2025, she described Project Titi as offering enrichment activities for both children and teenagers.[11]

Public discussion of racism has accompanied Aynaw’s work on representation. In a 2017 interview, she said she had not personally experienced racism, while acknowledging that racism existed in Israel and saying she believed conditions were changing. She also said she had participated in protests against racism.[4] These comments described her own experience and views rather than an independently measured assessment.