In August, the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest welcomed Ariella Rada as Israel’s Consul for Academic and Community Affairs .

In addition to years of diplomatic experience, Rada brings to her new position a powerful and familiar story: the Jewish Exodus, the story of a refugee escaping anti-Semitism, surviving against all the odds, and finding new hope and purpose in Israel. “My past is a story of yearning, suffering, and redemption,” said Rada. “My future is a story of unity, shared values, and shared destiny.”

Rada was born in a village outside Gondar, Ethiopia, at a turbulent time in the country’s history. From 1974 to 1991, Ethiopia was torn apart by civil war. In the midst of the upheaval, the warring political parties found a mutual enemy in the Jewish people. By the time Rada was born, Jews were legally forbidden from learning Hebrew and from studying Torah by the government and scorned by their neighbors as “Christ-killers.” To further complicate matters, it was illegal for Jews to leave Ethiopia and the expressed desire to do so marked one as a traitor and as an enemy to their country.

In 1984, when Rada was three years old, famine made the situation in Ethiopia unbearable, and her family made the decision to flee. Driven by the dream of a place where it was safe to be Jewish, Rada, her mother, uncle, and two sisters left the only home they had ever known, hoping, but not knowing if the Land of Milk and Honey was really out there.

The moment they left home, her family became refugees and fugitives. If caught, the Ethiopian government would show no mercy. For three weeks, Rada’s family walked through the desert, crossing hundreds of miles, hoping to find shelter in Sudan and, ultimately, a new home in The Promised Land. Despite all the reasons they had to be afraid, “we held onto the little spark of hope towards our future in Israel,” recounted Rada.

Not long after arriving at a Sudanese refugee camp, she and her family were part of one of the many covert operations that airlifted Ethiopian Jews out from Sudan and brought them to Israel. They were finally going home.

After making aliyah, Rada’s family settled in Kiryat Arba, where they were joined by her father. A few years later, the whole family moved to Be’er Sheva, where there was a vibrant Ethiopian Jewish community. Fifteen years after her family was rescued by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Rada graduated from high school and became an IDF commander charged with training new recruits. After completing her service and a few years of living in Eilat, she enrolled in university, getting first a bachelor’s degree in Government, Diplomacy & Strategy and then a master’s in Conflict Resolution from Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.

The focus of her studies, she explained, was motivated by her experiences as a refugee and as an Ethiopian Israeli. “My mother always used that famous phrase, ‘a person who does not know his past, will have an uncertain future,'” recalled Rada. “She was right… [my] past made me the woman I am today.”

After school, Rada applied to become a member of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and became the Vice Ambassador of the Embassy of Israel in Lima, Peru. She knew little Spanish when she arrived in Peru, but picked it up quickly through her work with the country’s small but mighty Jewish community. In her role, she enhanced Israel’s relationship with the Peruvian government through collaborative projects designed to improve the well-being and industry in Peru.

In her new role as Israel’s Consul for Academic and Community Affairs in Chicago, Rada’s next project will be working with local universities to assess and develop programming that addresses community needs as well as to help “balance” Israel’s image and “present the different aspects of Israel that you don’t always see in the media.”

With the growing presence of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on local college campuses, she wants to help temper the situation by facilitating meaningful discussions and building positive relationships between Israel and American students. “My goal is to strengthen the relationship between Israel and the United States,” she said.

Here in Chicago, Rada said she hopes to start a new chapter in its Jewish story. “I appreciate the opportunity to be a voice for the State of Israel and the Jewish world,” she affirmed. By “representing my country… I am fulfilling the dream of my ancestors.”

Jenna Cohen serves as Grants and Planning Associate for Jewish Child & Family Services and is a freelance writer living in Chicago.