“…She was afraid that without the university behind her, they would see right through her. They would see that she wasn’t some prodigy…that she didn’t really belong there… Later she realized that she always fled the neighborhood as quickly as possible, because she feared that there, too, they would see through her. They would see that she was no longer ‘hood’ enough, that she’s someone who now thinks she’s a little better than them.”
This passage from Frecha Academait (“academic bimbo”), a debut novel by Naomi Shloush, captures the essence of the book’s central tension: the quiet, persistent fear of not truly belonging anywhere. In a conversation with The Jerusalem Report, Shloush, 39, reflected on the book’s message, her own upbringing on the margins of Israeli society, and the possibility of bridging the worlds she has moved between.
The periphery
At the heart of Frecha Academait lies the experience of growing up in the “periphery,” a term that in Israel encompasses not only the geographical distance from the country’s cultural and economic center but also deep-rooted social inequalities among certain ethnic groups.
For Shloush, CEO of Start 800, a socio-educational initiative operating after-school programs, the most significant divide is not geographic but psychological.
“It’s the gap in what people feel is possible for them,” she told the Report.
For women in particular, Shloush highlighted, this gap is intergenerational and echoes the past struggles of Israel’s Mizrahi ethnic group, which fought to expand those very horizons. Now, it seems, it is Shloush’s turn to carry that legacy forward.
Reclaiming ‘Frecha’
Perhaps the most striking feature of Shloush’s novel lies in its title.
“For me, Frecha was first just the name of a Moroccan woman. A friend of my grandmother… But at some point, it became a slur [in Israeli society],” Shloush noted. The word frecha can be traced back to the waves of Mizrahi immigration to Israel in the 1950s. Back then, it was a popular first name for women from certain countries.
In the decades that followed, however, the word became loaded with stereotypes conjuring images of vulgarity, loudness, and a perceived lack of education. It is still used as a derogatory slur, particularly toward Mizrahi women.
In her novel, by pairing frecha with the word “academic,” Shloush deliberately confronts those stigmas and, rather than rejecting the term, she reclaims it, exposing the assumptions it carries while insisting on the layered, complex identities it seeks to erase.
“Today, I am proud both of being a frecha and of being an academic,” Shloush said.
“If once I tried to hide it, today I understand that this identity is a source of power.”
Social action
Frecha Academait follows protagonist Natalie as she navigates through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, reflecting many of the social realities experienced by those living in the periphery.
For Shloush, the story – which explores the economic hardship and cultural stigma that often shape young people’s future – quickly became a tool for dialogue, particularly among women and young teens who had grown up navigating similar social and cultural tensions.
“I saw it less as a literary creation and more as a tool for social action,” she said, adding, “It was never a dream of mine to write a book.”
When Shloush first sat down in a writing workshop in Tel Aviv, she had no intention of writing a book. She had taken a year-long break from work and enrolled in the workshop, with low expectations. The book that eventually emerged grew almost accidentally.
“Toward the end of the workshop sessions, I suddenly realized I had a collection of stories... stories that spoke to each other and were all connected to my life,” she recalled, describing how the more she shared those stories, the more she understood.
Many of those stories centered on her own childhood in Ashkelon, a working-class town in southern Israel.
The memories that surfaced surprised even her. Events she had never fully processed began to appear on paper; moments from her childhood, her adolescence, and her later years navigating academic and professional spaces far removed from the world she grew up in.
Between two worlds
One of the central tensions both in the novel and in Shloush’s own life story is the feeling of moving between two worlds: the “hood” and academia.
Shloush, like Natalie, first encountered academic life at the age of 16, when she was accepted into a program for “outstanding youth from the periphery.”
This brought high school students from lower-income areas to Tel Aviv University for summer courses. The experience was transformative but also disorienting. “In the university, you don’t want to be the ‘hood girl,’” Shloush said. “And in the neighborhood, you don’t want to seem like you’re looking down on everyone.”
The same tension shapes Natalie’s experience in the book. Ashamed of her background and desperate to fit into academic spaces, Natalie begins to hide parts of her identity.
“Natalie was constantly busy feeling ashamed and hiding what and who she was – her family, her poor home,” Shloush writes in Frecha Academait.
This dual consciousness of belonging fully to neither world becomes one of the defining themes of the narrative.
Saying no
If the book exposes the obstacles faced by young people from marginalized backgrounds, in Shloush’s eyes it also highlights the role of opportunity and the courage to seize it.
“Natalie’s strength is that she never says no to opportunities,” she explained.
This message is one that Shloush shares with young people she meets through her educational program and the lectures she gives.
“If someone offers you something, then just say yes,” Shloush said she tells the young people she speaks to. “You have no idea what doors it might open.”
For those who begin life at a social disadvantage, she continued, these moments can be decisive.
Bridging divides
Today, Shloush – whose organization promotes values of education, personal resilience, and shared living, with an emphasis on democratic values and shared society – said she believes that people who move between different social worlds, like herself and her character, Natalie, can play a crucial role in bridging divides within Israeli society.
“Israeli society is incredibly complex,” she said.
Rather than seeing that complexity as a negative, Shloush sees it as a source of possibility.
“People who know how to hold those different worlds are the ones who can bridge parts of Israeli society,” she said.
In many ways, Frecha Academait is itself an attempt to do exactly that: to bring the neighborhood and academia into conversation and to challenge the boundaries that have long separated them and, even in 2026, still do. ■