The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences’ Master of Nonprofit Organizations program will host guest speaker Shir Mnuchin. She will present “Identity: Refugee, Olah, Israeli” on Thursday, Oct. 30, from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Mandel Community Studies Center, room 108.
Based on her family’s experience of fleeing Syria for Israel, Mnuchin speaks about the topic of cultural identity from firsthand experience, examining the role the past—and learning about family history—plays in building the present and future. She incorporates a scene from the documentary film Shadow in Baghdad (2013), which is about her mother, Linda Abdul Aziz, an Israeli Middle East reporter who fled Baghdad in the 1970s.
Mnuchin holds an MBA in social leadership and a BA in Israel studies, politics and government (with honors) from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She has served as an Israeli emissary in the United States and was appointed as the liaison for the Educational Corps to the Mandel Foundation and the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. In the past few years, Mnuchin has been involved extensively in community-oriented projects, combining a passion for social justice and empowerment while practicing leadership.