From an Ethiopian Village to the NY Legislature

Growing up in a small village in Ethiopia in the 1980s, Mazi Melesa Pilip led a simple life. Her family didn’t have running water in their home. There were no microwaves nor many cars. They ate what they could get their hands on, and they had very little access to education.

Every Friday night when Shabbat arrived, they would honor it.

“We never talked about Judaism much, but we did Shabbat,” said Pilip. “It was a time to stop working and just rest.”

When Pilip was 12, she and her family were forced to leave their home. The Ethiopian Civil War was going on all around them and getting closer to their home. One night, her family received word that the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was telling the Jews of Ethiopia that they had to leave everything behind and escape to Israel right away.

We woke up the next morning and, with thousands of people, we walked to the Israeli embassy,” Pilip said. “It was chaos.”

Pilip and her family quickly completed their paperwork and, along with more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews, left on a jumbo jet to Israel. While she was riding in the jet, she looked out the window and saw Israel from above.

“It was beautiful and full of light,” she said. “When we landed, soldiers helped us and gave us everything we needed. We started a new life in the most beautiful country in the world.”

When she was 18, Pilip served in the Israel Defense Forces as a paratrooper. “It was a moment of pride because I felt like I was giving back to the country that had given so much to me and my family,” she said. “My family was very proud of me.”

When her service was finished, Pilip enrolled at the University of Haifa where she studied occupational therapy and met her husband, an American Ukrainian Jew named Adalbert Pilip – he was studying to become a doctor at the Technion.

“I never planned to move to the United States, but he proposed to me and told me he wanted to start a family with me,” she said.

The two settled in Great Neck, New York, and today they have seven children together.

In 2021, Pilip, who got a Master’s degree in diplomacy and security from Tel Aviv University, started seeing antisemitism and the divide between people of different political parties in our country. She wanted to do something about it.

“About two years ago, there was a lot of antisemitism and people were boycotting Israel,” she said. “My son was getting ready for his bar mitzvah. I asked him, ‘What do you want from your grandpa and grandma in Israel?’ He said he wanted a Star of David necklace. During that time I was thinking no way, what if someone attacked him because of his necklace? Then I said, what am I doing? I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Everyone should be comfortable in this country. Something is wrong, and I have to get involved.”

Pilip soon got her chance to make a change. A seat opened up to become a Nassau County legislator in the 10^th district where she lived, and she decided to run – even though she was pregnant.

“People knew I was an immigrant from Ethiopia, a mother and Jewish and thought this was very unique,” Pilip said. “The Persian Jewish community in Great Neck thought my service in the IDF was a big deal.”

She won, becoming the first Republican elected to this seat. In her job, she puts people above politics.

“Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, even if you didn’t vote for me, I’m here for you,” she said. “I put partisan politics aside and do what is good for our society. I try not to be judgmental or jump to a conclusion. I want to bring my community together.”

Pilip may soon have the opportunity to do that on a higher level. Her name has been put forward as a potential candidate to replace disgraced United States Representative George Santos, who has been caught in a web of lies since being elected. One of the things he lied about was claiming that he was Jewish and his grandparents fled the Holocaust.

If I can answer that call and solve that person’s problem, that’s a mitzvah.

“Santos never told me he was Jewish,” Pilip said. “He told me was Catholic and he said he has Jewish roots. That might be true. I wasn’t there to judge him. But what I didn’t like was he said his father is Black and his grandparents are Holocaust survivors. My husband’s grandmother is a Holocaust survivor. Her family died in Germany. It’s more personal for my husband.”

While Santos hasn’t said he’s going to resign, that could change – and Pilip would consider running if the GOP chairman in New York wants her to.

“He will choose the right person from the party who will serve their community,” she said. “Anyway, if I can give back to the people, I will definitely do it.”

No matter what ends up happening, Pilip strives to be a leader who brings people together, as well as help those in need, as her Jewish values taught her.

“I’m always getting calls from people who need something,” she said. “If I can answer that call and solve that person’s problem, that’s a mitzvah. The more mitzvahs you do, the better it is for you.”