Noa Tishby Among ‘Remarkable Women’ Honored by LA Magazine

Los Angeles magazine hosted its annual luncheon on March 21 to honor outstanding and inspiring women in L.A. Kris Jenner, featured on the March cover, was named Woman of the Year, taking center stage. 

Editor-in-Chief Shirley Halperin interviewed Jenner about motherhood and being the head of one of the most known families in L.A., the Kardashian-Jenner clan. When asked if she has any plans to retire, Jenner shared a story about a woman who was 102 years old and used to dress to the nines, remaining active. Her secret for longevity was “Never retire.” And just like her, Jenner said, she has no intentions of retiring. “I’ve got things to do.”

Other participants were Gillian Zucker, the L.A. Clippers president of business operations, restauranteurs Elizabeth and Catherine An, FOX 11 anchor Christine Devine and MTV host Kamie Crawford, who participated in a panel discussion. 

The event showcased other successful and powerful women featured in the L.A. Woman issue. Among them was Noa Tishby, who arrived at the event wearing a black and white dress jacket by Israeli designer Ronny Kobo. Tishby presented small gifts to the influential women: tiny yellow ribbon pins, symbolizing the Bring Them Home movement, advocating for the hostages held in Gaza.

Reflecting on her gesture, Tishby said, “It was my Israeli defiance. After witnessing the Oscars, I was mortified. I decided to pin it on every single person on the next red carpet.” 

She reported that the women’s reaction was overwhelmingly positive. “I wasn’t sure if they fully understood its significance, but I made it clear that it symbolizes the call for hostage release. Every person I spoke to agreed wholeheartedly. Some mentioned a ceasefire, to which I responded, ‘Of course, after the hostages are released and Hamas surrenders.’ Many supporters of the ceasefire lack clarity on what they’re advocating for. Once I explained it, they were fully supportive.”

Halperin, who was born in Israel and moved to New Jersey with her family when she was eight years old, has written for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard before assuming her role at Los Angeles Magazine six months ago. Since the war in Israel started, she has published dozens of articles about the situation to shed light on and show support for the country she came from.

One of the women invited to the event was Caroline D’Amore, the founder and CEO of “Pizza Girl” and a fierce supporter of Israel. D’Amore isn’t Jewish, but she said that doesn’t stop her from showing support for Israel, and despite the backlash against her on social media, she doesn’t stop speaking and showing her support. She also traveled to Israel after Oct. 7 and visited the kibbutzim that were attacked on Simchat Torah. 

“I don’t need to be Jewish to speak,” she told the Journal. “It’s about being human. I want to see more people speak up for humans who are being attacked. There were those who told me, ‘It’s going to affect your business, you are going to lose followers,’ but I don’t care.”

D’Amore said that she has Jewish friends who called her after Oct. 7 and were very upset. They had posted about friends or family members who got hurt in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust and received a huge amount of hate. 

“I was blown away,” she said. “I never ever had seen anything like it and I had to say something. I thought the whole world would see it like I do, but they didn’t.”

So, she went to her backyard and recorded herself speaking emotionally about the horrendous attack on innocent Israelis. An hour later, the post received 32,000 views, and in the next four days, accumulated six million views. Yes, she had lost some followers along the way, but she now receives a huge amount of love and support from the Jewish community.

“I prefer to look at the glass half full and look at the people who are speaking up.” – Noa Tishby

 Tishby said that she sees a lot of support in Hollywood for Israel. “I have been fighting antisemitism since at least 2001, so for at least two decades. I had seen silence before, and this is not it. I prefer to look at the glass half full and look at the people who are speaking up. We cannot discount people like Amy Schumer, Michael Rapaport, Debra Messing and so many others who are saying ‘enough is enough.’”

Tishby’s next book — “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew,” co-written with Emmanuel Acho — will be published this month. Acho had previously published ‘Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy’ and approached Tishby to collaborate with him. 

“He wanted to do the same thing for the Jewish community,” she said. “We started writing this book over a year ago, so this was pre-Oct. 7. He noticed that something is off. He saw the rise in antisemitism and he wanted to do something about it because his entire thing is that communities can’t work in silos. We have to work together to support each other.” 

Then, Oct. 7 happened.

“The book wasn’t supposed to come out until 2025, but because of the war, Simon and Schuster were very eager to get the book out, so we pushed hard,” Tishby said. “It’s basically everything you wanted to ask about the Jewish community and didn’t know how or didn’t know what to ask. It’s created as a conversation between the two of us, and it’s very uncomfortable conversations at times because I’m all about going deep or going home. So if there is something uncomfortable to talk about, we better talk about that.  It got very heated, real and very authentic. I’m very proud of this book.”