Before she is anything else, Tanya Tsikanovsky is a Jew. Everything she does starts there. She’s an openly lesbian Zionist in a sea of Queers for Palestine because she knows when we say the Shema, we say it to Israel. Tsikanovsky uses her platform to increase Jewish pride, to make “Zionist” a word we are proud to say out loud, and to remind Americans that patriotism isn’t something to apologize for.
She’s a speaker, director of development at Think Again, senior advisor to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, and a candidate for West Hollywood City Council. Her parents came to the U.S. as Jewish refugees because America gave them a chance and the Jewish community gave them a future. She owes both a debt she intends to repay with her life’s work.