קהילת יהודי בלמונטה

Shifra Horn (1951-), journalist and author born in Tel Aviv, Israel, who studied Bible Studies and Archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also has a teaching degree. Horn worked as an educational officer for the World Union of Jewish Students and in the course of this work she was involved in the discovery of the village of Belmonte in northwest Portugal, where crypto-Jews lived for some five hundred years while keeping their Jewish origins secret. Horn's activity in the village was instrumental in the conversion to traditional Judaism of the entire Crypto-Jewish population there. She helped to organize the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel and participated in the campaign to free Soviet and Syrian Jews by producing films and written material on the subject. Horn was a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Absorption until she was sent to Japan as Far East correspondent of Galei Tzahal, the Israel Defence Forces radio station, and the Maariv daily newspaper. When in Japan she helped to direct the Tokyo Jewish Community Center and taught Bible Studies and Hebrew at the Bible College in Ginza, Tokyo. Upon her return to Jerusalem, she opened a public relations firm, and lectured on Japan and literary topics. Her books have been translated from Hebrew into English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Greek, Mandarin and Turkish.

Horn has written four novels: Four Mothers, The Fairest Among Women, Ode to Joy, and Tamara Walks on Water. She also wrote Shalom Japan, Cats, A Love Story, and The New Zealand Experience as well as several books or children. She was awarded the Book Publishers' Association gold and platinum prizes, the Wizo Israel prize in 1997 and the Prime Minister's prize for literature in 2004. In 2002, Horn was nominated Literary Woman of the Year by the financial daily "Globes".