I'm not going to lie — when I first saw this tweet, my initial impulse was to wonder if it was a sly nod to The Babylon Bee.
That's right, the candidate Long Island Republicans have nominated to run for the seat vacated by George Santos, compliments of his expulsion from Congress, is an Orthodox-Jewish, Ethiopian-Israeli mother of seven. And did I mention she was an IDF paratrooper?
I suspect one might be forgiven for thinking that might be satire, given Santos' rather infamous penchant for...err...embellishing his resume. Santos caused a stir shortly after he was elected in November 2022 after it was revealed that his campaign biography was largely fabricated, including claims that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and was a "seasoned Wall Street financier and investor,” had graduated from Baruch College, ran an animal rescue charity, and — my personal favorite — was "Jew-ish," even though he's Catholic:
He claimed he was Jewish while speaking about his Jewish mother, and told voters his grandparents had escaped Nazi aggression in WWII. As it turns out, Santos is Catholic.
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was `Jew-ish.’”
All of which is largely moot since Santos was subsequently socked with multiple federal indictments and ultimately booted out of Congress. Not that he's gone quietly. Since his expulsion, Santos has been busy recording videos on "Cameo," and reportedly raking in the dough for it. Democratic Senator John Fetterman (PA) even retained Santos' services to troll Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who's also under federal indictment but hasn't yet been given the Santos treatment by his fellow senators.
Which left Republicans in his district in need of a replacement candidate. As indicated, they've now nominated one: 44-year-old Mazi Melesa Pilip, who has a rather impressive (and, by all accounts, genuine) resume.
Philip, 44, served as a paratrooper in the IDF, just a few years after immigrating to Israel from Ethiopia at age 12 as part of Operation Solomon. After her army service, Philip studied at the University of Haifa, earning a degree in occupational therapy and serving as Chairwoman of the Ethiopian Student Union.
There, she met her husband, Adalbert Pilip, a Ukrainian-American Jew studying medicine at the Technion.
She returned with him to the United States, where she became active in speaking about Israel for Jewish federations and other Jewish groups. Philip, who also holds a degree in diplomacy and security from Tel Aviv University, told JTA last year that her interest in politics was revived when her oldest son, preparing for his bar mitzvah, reported antisemitic comments he'd received from a classmate at his Great Neck public school.
Pilip will face off against Democrat Tom Suozzi, who occupied the seat prior to Santos, before leaving to run for New York Governor, a race he lost in the primary to current Governor Kathy Hochul. The special election is scheduled for February 13, 2024. We wish her the best!