National Leadership Program, Spring 2019
Madeleine Hannah Tasini
Madeleine Hannah Tasini was a Jewish Inclusion Fellow through RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program. Tasini chose RespectAbility’s Fellowship program because she wants to fight stigmas against people with disabilities. She hopes to use her skills to help make the Jewish community aware of people with disabilities and treat them fairly and equally. Tasini wants to make the Jewish community and Israel a more accessible place for people with disabilities. She hopes to use her power to ensure people with disabilities are treated fairly in Israel, especially when it comes to employment opportunities.
Tasini earned her bachelor’s degree in Government from Connecticut College. There, she participated in Connecticut College’s Hillel Board. She planned events and helped strengthen the Jewish community. In addition, she was involved in a poetry and spoken word club called RefleXion on campus where she performed some of her poems. Tasini is now a second-year graduate student at American University studying for a Master’s in Public Administration.
Before graduate school, Tasini taught English in Israel for five months. She worked with students who had disabilities and taught them English. Before coming to Respectability, she worked at the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C, as a Congressional Intern. She researched how the United States is working with Israel to destroy Hezbollah, an international terrorist organization.
Tasini is a published author of the book Colors of the World sold on Amazon. The book is a collection of poetry about love, forgiveness, never giving up on yourself, poems about the world, and poems about her life. Tasini wrote this book when she was 16 years old. Today, Tasini has a poetry blog through her Instagram @racinghearts_123. Tasini is working on her next book of poems in her spare time. She hopes to use her poetry writing skills to help people believe in themselves and to express her life in her poems. Tasini is fluent in Hebrew. She hopes to move and live in Israel one day.
