Press Room

AAI in the News

Odds are she's for the underdog

By Heather Kays
Herald News
Posted on Monday October 10, 2005

CLIFTON – Sherine El-Abd is a political spitfire.

Passionate, quick-witted and feisty, the 59-year-old Arab-American political activist and member of the New Jersey Civil Rights Commission is devoted to rooting for the underdog.

In fact, she has based her life around it for more than two decades.

In 1984, El-Abd, who was born in Egypt and came to the United States at the age of 18 to attend college, started her political activism by campaigning for the Democratic presidential ticket of Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.

“I was very excited a woman was going to be considered for that position,” said El-Abd of Ferraro’s vice presidential nomination. El-Abd spent most of her free time working on the campaign, attending fundraisers, compiling literature and speaking to New Jersey voters.

That was, until she read a newspaper article that said that Mondale, under pressure, had returned funds given to him by Arab-American supporters.

“I was so upset, so shocked – so angry!” she said, adding that she called Mondale’s headquarters to verify the information and demand an explanation. “I sent a letter stating that I would no longer work on the campaign and that I no longer supported the candidate.”

She stalked across the political aisle to the Republicans, and she has been one ever since.

In addition, El-Abd began fighting for the Arab-American community.

“People from my community were being underappreciated and unrecognized,” she said. “We needed a voice. We, as a community, needed to be heard.”

Since then, El-Abd has become active in the Arab American Institute, the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

She is also a member of the Egyptian American Professional Society, the Egyptian American Business Association and the Egyptian American Political Action Committee.

It doesn’t end there.

She speaks to senior citizens, religious groups and civic organizations about the importance of voting and getting involved in local politics.

A corporate event planner by profession, El-Abd runs her business out of her home in Clifton, where she moved earlier this year, primarily because Passaic County has the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the state.

“As long as I am alive, I will continue to try to engage more and more young people in the political process,” said the wife, mother and grandmother of two.

“You have to understand that I must enjoy it, because I’m not getting paid to do it,” she said with a laugh.