I am a South African Jewish actress, writer, producer and theatre-maker. My mother is Israeli, with Yemenite roots; my father’s family comes from Poland. I am a third-generation descendant of Holocaust survivors, which means I inherited memory before I had words for it. The stories heard in silent fragments, the names of people I would never meet, and the silences that sat beside us at the table like members of the family.

I grew up understanding that what is not remembered can be lost, and what is left unspoken does not disappear. It travels quietly through generations, waiting for someone to give it a voice.
That understanding became my life’s work.

My organisation creates socially conscious theatre that enters the places history has wounded and asks what remains human there. I believe storytelling can restore a face, a name and a heartbeat to lives too often flattened into dates, statistics and political arguments. Theatre allows us to stand, if only briefly, inside another person’s truth. (https://www.facebook.com/memoryandtruth)

This belief lives most powerfully in Sarajevo, (https://www.instagram.com/sarajevo_stage_play/) (https://www.facebook.com/sarajevo.play/) the award-winning play I wrote, produced and perform in. Set during the Bosnian War, it explores friendship, identity, sexual violence, complicity and the terrible cost of silence. At its heart are questions that refuse to remain in the past: Who is allowed to own memory? Whose suffering is believed? What happens when those we once loved are renamed the enemy? And what becomes of us when we witness another person’s pain and choose to look away?

As a woman in leadership, I do not stand outside the work and direct it from a distance. I live inside it. I write the stories, build and guide the teams, raise the production, form partnerships and then step onto the stage to carry its weight in my own body. I create spaces where survivors, artists and audiences can meet difficult truths without being abandoned inside them.

I am especially committed to women whose lives have been shaped by war, violence and inherited trauma. Too often, their bodies become the battleground and their voices become the first casualties of history. I want my work to return those voices to them. Not by speaking on their behalf, but by creating a space in which they can no longer be ignored.

My heritage has taught me that identity is not a straight line. It is a tapestry of belonging, rupture, contradiction and memory. It has taught me that two histories can ache in the same room, and that honouring one people’s pain should never demand the erasure of another’s. Suffering is not a competition. Grief does not need permission to be real.

I lead by walking towards the conversations others are afraid to begin. I listen. I question. I hold the door open. I try to create enough courage in the room for another person to step forward and tell the truth.

My work lives at the meeting place of art, memory and witness. I make theatre because behind every war are ordinary people who once laughed together, ate at the same tables, loved one another and called the same streets home, before history taught them to become strangers.

To remember them is my responsibility.
To return their humanity is my art.
To ensure their stories outlive the silence is my leadership.

I believe I was nominated for transforming inherited memory into fearless theatre-making silence speak, restoring dignity to women erased by conflict, and insisting humanity must be louder than hatred.

My vision is to lead without fear, to use theatre as both a mirror and a witness, confronting the truths we would rather silence and transforming memory into action. I want to build a South Africa where women lead boldly, artists shape national conversations, and no human story is considered too uncomfortable to be heard. Our future depends on courageous leadership that does not deny our pain, but turns it into purpose and reminds us that our humanity will always be stronger than what divides us.

Over the past few years, I have transformed personal history, inherited memory and difficult truths into theatre that refuses silence. Through Sarajevo, I led a courageous team in creating work that confronts war, sexual violence and complicity while fiercely protecting the humanity at its centre. I brought women’s voices and forgotten histories onto the stage, creating spaces where audiences could not only witness pain, but question, connect and heal.

As a Jewish, half-Israeli South African woman and third-generation Holocaust survivor, I have chosen to lead through empathy, even when it is uncomfortable. For me, leadership is the courage to refuse inherited hatred, to cross the divides history has drawn for us, and to recognise that pain is pain, no matter whose body carries it. If my journey inspires others, I hope it shows them that art can be more than expression: it can be an act of remembrance, resistance and profound human connection.

Recreational activities

Writing , Holocaust and Gencide research, Karate , Educational activities and memorials at The Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre.