Tahounia Rubel

Tahounia Rubel was born in 1988 in Gondar

Tahounia Rubel was born in Gondar, Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian Jewish family of 13 children. In 1991 she came to Israel with her family in Operation Solomon and lived in a caravan neighborhood in Jerusalem. In 1995 the family moved to Beit Shemesh.

She studied in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem but did not finish school. In 2006 she joined the IDF, served as a driving course instructor and completed her matriculation during service. She later studied law at Ono Academic College.

In 2012 she lived in London for 8 months and modeled for campaigns there. That year she won Israel's Supermodel contest, the first woman of Ethiopian origin to win a beauty pageant in Israel, and competed in Fiji without reaching the final.

In 2013 she won the fifth season of HaAh HaGadol and a prize of 1 million shekels. A contestant directed racist insults at her during the show. She then appeared on several television programs, and a documentary about her life aired in 2014.

In 2021 she competed in the second season of The Masked Singer as the Babushka. In 2024 she took part in the HOT series Indal.