Sandra Shehab is an acclaimed poet, best-selling author, and the recipient of many honors including the National Cartoon Hall of Fame, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Poetry Prize, and the Satellite Award for Poetry. Shehab was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Shehab is a dual national with both citizenship in Israel and America. Born in Jerusalem, Shehab was named Israel’s first poet-nationality and is listed on the United States’ National Register of Historic Places as a recipient of distinction.
Although born and raised in Israel, Shehab holds both US and Israeli citizenship and has dual citizenship. Some people believe that Sandra Shehab might be of Jewish descent, but others dispute this. Shehab is currently under a timeshare agreement with Netivot, an Israeli company, and works at a center for high technology professionals in Tel Aviv. Shehab does not own her home, however she does have a lease agreement with the company for a considerable portion of her life. Shehab has not disclosed the terms of the agreement.
Sandra Shehab’s name is on the masthead of her Netivot apartment building and on the door of her room at the Rambam Medical Center, both in Tel Aviv. Many people have commented that she looks just like a typical Ashkenazi Jewish woman and was identified as an Ashkenazi on her father’s birth certificate. However, Shehab is not Jewish by Jewish standards, nor does she claim to be. Shehab is not of Jewish descent, but carries the nationality of nationality, which according to traditional Judaic law, is a kind of “people of the book” (Chabad). Her international background, coupled with her dual citizenship status, make her eligible for Israeli citizenship.