b'ALIZA BLOCH, PhDAliza Bloch, Mayor of Beit Shemesh, was born on the eve of Yom Kippur in 1967 to the late Yitzhak and Hannah Ben Hamo, who immigrated to Israel from Morocco shortly beforehand. She took her first steps as a leader at a young age by mentoring in a youth movement. In this movement, she concentrated the movements branches in Arad and Tiberias, established the movements absorption and aliyah department, and led the HaShachar project, which works to this day with the Ethiopian sector. After earning a B.A. and M.A. in Israeli studies, she also studied for a B.A. in mathematics and became a teacher. A few years later, she began running Branko Weiss High School in Beit Shemesh, which she founded and established as a leading high school in the city, winning many prestigious awards for her management. Aliza continued her professional path in writing a doctoral dissertation on the design of the education system in the development towns in the years 1968-1995. Aliza summed up her years of management in her book Building This Bridge, in which she showcased her educational vision based on a belief in each students ability to achieve, alongside an uncompromising pursuit of high value education. While in the midst of an initiative to establish a training program for principals at the Lewinsky Academic College, the election campaign for the position of mayor of Beit Shemesh had begun. Aliza led a campaign which called for unification and full cooperation between all the populations in Beit Shemesh - a new spirit that gave great hope to the old and new residents of the city. Four months later, most of the citys residents chose Aliza as the first woman to head the Beit Shemesh municipality, in a victory that testified most of all to her ability to be attentive to the publics feelings and turn them into policy. Following the election, the Mayor was named by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 Most Influential Jews of 2019. Aliza resides in Beit Shemesh alongside her husband Dr. Aharon Bloch, Head of the Dialysis Unit in the Hadassah Ein Karem Medical Center in Jerusalem, and her four children who were born and raised in Beit Shemesh.'