As part of an annual beauty pageant held in the Philippines on 4 October at the Philippine International Convention Centre, an Israeli participant was awarded the title of Miss Congeniality.

In all, around 50 beauties participated from all around the worldincluding Israel’s Noy Ben-Artziat the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant.

The Tel-Aviv native, 22, was chosen by her fellow 53 competitors to receive the title at the Manila event.

According to an Israeli publication, in one segment of the pageant Ben-Artzi requested to walk hand-in-hand with a pageant contestant from Lebanon, but the latter refused to cooperate and the joint walk was cancelled.

She said about receiving the honour, “In my eyes, this is the most significant award, because I won it by the vote of the other contestants, and to me that means I also have character, and not just beauty.”