JUNE 27 • 2024 | 29
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Former Detroiter Ella Azaria teaches Israeli students to swim.

continued on page 30

also dining together and evening friend-
ly meetings,
” she says. “Sitting together, 
talking, playing, laughing and even crying.
”

KEEPING THE PROGRAM GOING 
Hadar Dikstein, from Tel Aviv, saw a post 
on social media calling for swim instruc-
tors and decided to get involved. “
After a 
week as an instructor, I felt gratitude for the 
opportunity to take part in such a unique 
project,
” she says. 
When funding came to a close, she and 
two other instructors volunteered until 
they raised more money for their salaries, 
she adds, noting how many people were 
involved helping the project happen, from 
the pool manager to contacts in each kib-
butz, to even the department of transpor-
tation, which helped move people from the 
hotels to the pools in the winter. 
Her work has included going to hotels to 
introduce the project and finding the peo-
ple in charge of children’s education, then 
working with the hundreds more people in 
the Dead Sea area who joined for private 
and group classes. 
Dikstein, who has concluded her term 
with the project, says she knew swimming 

had many advantages as a mind-body 
activity, but that the feedback from the 
evacuees regarding improved sleeping 
quality, bonds between participants and the 
importance of having a ritual in the chaos 
surprised her a lot. 

“I’m glad we had the opportunity to 
offer a little help within the harsh reality,
” 
Dikstein says. 
Yaniv Hegyi, from Kibbutz Be’
eri, had 
always wanted to be a better swimmer. So, 
when he was staying at Kibbutz Ein Gedi 
and saw the WhatsApp message offering 
swim classes half a year ago, he decided to 

take advantage of the opportunity. 
“It was amazing for me,
” he says. “From 
the first class, it was something that was 
really fulfilling.
” 
In the months following, he’s improved 
his swim technique and distance endur-
ance, he explains. Taking time in the pool 
improves his mental health and energy, 
he says, adding that being in the pool also 
clears his mind. 
“When I’m in the pool, I can think only 
about swimming; where does my hand go, 
how do I breathe,
” he says. “I’m thinking 
only about how to swim and how to do 
it better, and I don’t think about anything 
else.
”
It also gives him a sense of accomplish-
ment, strength and ability, which stands 
in stark contrast with the feelings brought 
through trauma of feeling their lives are out 
of their control, he says. 
“I can progress. I feel the ability, and that’s 
the opposite of inability, of the trauma, so I 
think it has some kind of role in my getting 
better psychologically,
” he explains. “We 
are going through a very tough phase in 
our lives, something we didn’t expect, and 
something I didn’t know that such a hard 

LEFT: Ella Azaria swims with a displaced Israeli. RIGHT: Azaria went to hotels to give children swim lessons.

“THE SWIMMING 
CLASSES ARE A 
SOURCE OF POWER 
AND LIGHT IN THE 

DARKNESS.”

— YANIV HEGYI

