Huda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo is Bahrain’s nominee for the post and this is of course very good news for Bahrain’s deep-rooted values of tolerance and openness,” Faisal Fouladh, a Shura Council representative, and some western diplomats were quoted in the reports as saying.
Huda Nonoo, a businesswoman, was also the first Jewish woman to sit in the Bahriani Shura Council, the 40-member upper house of the bicameral legislature, replacing her uncle.
She is also the first Jewish woman to head a rights organisation, the Bahrain Human Rights Watch, as its secretary-general.
The appointment of Huda is based on her qualification and not just ‘a public relationing campaign’ by the island kingdom, her colleagues in Shura insisted.
Huda Nonoo belongs to a tiny Jewish community in Bahrain, dating back to the Talmudic era. Her forefathers migrated from Iraq in the late 19th century.