From the Nitzan Newsletter, "Nitzanton" - October 2007 

Uri Shiler - Olympic Champion

I was also nominated to travel to China until a month before the departure, but the decisions were made a week after training camp at Wingate that the only one that would travel from Nitzan Onim is Uri Shiler; therefore, I decided to interview him.

Question: How was the flight and were you able to rest at the hotel in Bangkok?

Answer: The plane ride on the way there and on the way back was long and difficult. On the way there I rested at a hotel in Bangkok that we received as a gift from El Al. On the way back, there wasn't any rest in Bangkok.

Question: How was the opening ceremony?

Answer: The opening ceremony was impressive with famous actors like Jaki Chan but the closing ceremony was also beautiful.

Question: Did you miss Israel?

Answer: I most missed my girlfriend Liat.

Question: What was the most exciting moment?

Answer: The entire trip was exciting, especially when I won the trip.

Question: Did you tour with all of the delegation or just with the judo team?

Answer: In the beginning and the end we were all together, but during the competitions we were in a hotel just with the judo team and all of the trips were in a bus with judo teams from all over the world.

Question: How were the matches?

Answer: In the beginning there were preliminary rounds that test your abilities and set your rank. I was ranked 1, the highest rank. I was slotted against two British. One on I defeated and unfortunately to the second one I lost. So I finished in second place.

Question: Do you want to travel to the Olympics in Greece?

Answer: I hope, but it is still not decided if I'm going to continue to compete or just to train. But I warmly suggest to whoever wasn't at the Olympics to be there, it's an experience of pressure and fun together.

In summary, the personal opinion of Dekel, I'll try to improve to make it in another 4 years to Greece and if you also want to make it to Greece, run fast to Dekel and call, come on and get off the chair!

Israel Became a Medal Power in Shanghai

Israel's Special Olympics athletes continued to raise the standard of Israeli medals in the Special Olympics competition that was held in Shanghai, China. Uri Shiler and Barak Levav won two silver medals. In short, this was another successful day for Israel's ambitious athletes that despite their disabilities are able to bring more honor and prestige to the country.

Stories from the Workplace

My Work at Beit Izzy Shapiro/ Mariana

I work now more than a year at a place called Beit Izzy Shapiro. This is a place with preschool children that have special needs. The work that we do actually contributes to the children and the place. Our job is wrapping gift packs for the holidays (boxes of wine, chocolates, and more) of large companies. We wrap lots of nice holiday gifts like these, we put them in boxes and when they're all ready or the box is full, we send them to the company. The company pays for the wrapping of the gifts and the money they pay is given as a donation to Beit Izzy Shapiro, for the children's needs.

Job Advancement/ Stella

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share with you in my job advancement. I've been working at Sabarro at Cinema City Galilot for one year and a month. I started out with the job of a kitchen assistant - I cut vegetables for salads and prepared mixtures for pizza. Later I asked to learn how to make the pastas, they taught me and then I asked to learn to make pizzas, breads, and other baked goods - I thought this would be hard, but it was actually easy and I learned this too.

Later on I learned to work on the cash register and to serve customers. And look, today I'm the shift manager. As shift manager, I'm responsible for the staff of the shift- two cooks and a server, that is the person who serves the food, I'm also responsible for making sure that there is everything that is needed to sell pastas, pizzas, and that the server gives good service to the customers.