Zora Cichowski

Zora Cichowski (2019)

2016 - present (as an actress)

**Zora Tzila Cichowski** (née **Mendel**, born September 16, 1986) - is an American actress and former politician and lawyer.

## Biography

### Early Life

Zora Tzila Mendel was born on September 16, 1986 in Des Moines, Iowa to Biljana ''Jane'' (née Vuković, born 1963) and Noam Mendel (born 1961). Her father, who ran a bar in Des Moines, was born in Cuba as a fourth of seven children born to Jewish immigrant parents from Russia and left for Iowa at the age of two with them, he was raised bilingual in Yiddish and English. Her paternal grandfather, Ophir Mendel (1925-2013) was an attorney, while her grandmother, Yakira Sokol (1928-2019) worked in a footwear factory before becoming seamstress. Her mother, was born in Iowa as the second of five children born to Bosnian parents from Zenica, and her first language was Bosnian and she struggled with learning English to the age of eleven. Mendel was fluent in Yiddish in her childhood, but as she stated, through the years she forgot much words from this language. Once asked in an interview, she stated that she desribes herself as a ''Slavic American''. Mendel is the eldest of three children, with a brother Lavi (born 1988) and sister Shani (born 1991). Her parents divorced when she was nine and remarried when she was fifteen. During time after their divorce, her father had a son Yair (born 1996) and a daughter Nava (born 1998), with a Jewish-American woman named Tali. Her father wed Tali in June 1999, two months prior her death in a car crash. After her parents got remarried, her mother legally adopted Yair and Nava. When she was eighteen she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to study law at University of Wisconsin-Madison, which she graduated in 2007, and later to Saint Paul, Minnesota to study public affairs at University of Minnesota, and after that moved back to Des Moines.

### Career

#### Politics and Law

Mendel announced her candidacy in Iowa House of Representatives District 21 in March 2010, as a primary challenge to Roger Mercer. Mercer withdrew from the race in the face of criminal charges, but remained on the ballot as the official withdrawal deadline has passed. Mendel won the June primary with 91% of the vote. She was the youngest woman and the first Bosnian American elected to any public office in the United States. In 2012, she was reelected to the Iowa House of Representatives District 61 defeating Louise Michael. She was replaced by Stanley McPherson in January 2015. One month later, Mendel opened her law office, but gave it to her brother Lavi in February 2016.

#### Acting

Shortly after selling law office, she wrote on her social media profile ''I've always wanted to become an actress, especially when was young and saw Lisa Halme in *Rule Breaker*.'' In March 2016, she auditioned for a role in a television series *Town Lawyer*, for a main role of Leona Turner. She won an audition. First episode of *Town Lawyer* was aired on December 5, 2016. Series lasted to December 20, 2018. During playing in series, in 2017, Mendel played in *Be Careful* alongside Patti Wu. In June 2019, she was casted in *Once Upon a Time On Olympus*, which premiered on March 1, 2020. In the film, she played Demeter, the goddess of harvest and agriculture. She played a supporting role in *Cotton Candy* (2021) alongside Dionne Berkeley.

### Personal Life

She married Irish-born American singer and songwriter Harry Cichowski on May 6, 2010. The two first met in June 2006 during their vacations in Los Angeles and it turned out that she and Harry live in the same city. Cichowski is a half-brother to an Irish model Maura Cichowski. After wedding, she adopted his surname. Cichowski announced her pregnancy in June 2011 but had a miscarriage two months later. She states, ''If not my husband, I would fell in alcoholism and suffer from depression.'' She announced that she is pregant again in December 2018. Same month in an interview she stated, ''I was afraid of becoming pregnant again and go through it all over again for about seven years, but I decided to try again.'' Their daughter, Noya Svetlana, was born on September 2, 2019. She gave birth to their second child, a son Asher Harry, on August 7, 2021. She resides in centre of her hometown. She is learning Hebrew since July 2021.