SHESEK: Helping Israel's disabled civilians post-Oct. 7

The first thing a visitor notices when entering the grounds of the Ilan Sports Centre for the Disabled is the tranquility. 

In the central courtyard, lined with tracks for wheelchair and handcycling, children race each other, sometimes with able-bodied siblings running behind. It is lined with trees and flowers. The trainers greet you as they accompany various clients.

I am here to explore the center in Ramat Gan, also known as Israel ParaSport Center, which is the largest sports center for disabled civilians in the country, and one of the largest in the world. It caters to a wide range of people of all ages, capabilities, and backgrounds.

The facilities themselves are state of the art and highly impressive. I am given a tour by Dekkel Bachar, an adaptive sports specialist from Canada and director of the post-October 7 SHESEK initiative, and the reason I’m here. She leads me through various adapted courts – wheelchair basketball, tennis, archery – a judo studio for the visually impaired, an adapted Pilates studio, a mobility gym, a fully adapted strength and conditioning gym, a regular pool, and a hydrotherapy pool. There is a hive of activity: Clients and their trainers are busy partaking in various activities. I am lucky enough to witness a children’s basketball class and hydrotherapy session, a national wheelchair basketball squad practice, and a plethora of individuals using the gym sessions. Old and young. 

Bachar explains that the center caters to all disabilities. Some people here have congenital conditions or ones they were born with such as multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, and cerebral palsy. Others have had cancer-related amputations or paralysis. Several have spinal cord injuries. Some have intellectual disabilities, and others had severe falls or car accidents. She stresses that the center does not turn away anyone, no matter the condition, but that the expectations change per client. Some wheelchair users join the center and become Olympians, like the center’s director, Boaz Kramer. Others may be focused on their mobility or muscular strength, or their mental well-being. 

Established in 1960, the center has been run by Kramer since 2012. A two-time Olympic wheelchair tennis player and Beijing 2008 silver medalist, he returned to the center and has directed it ever since.

The center is one of several run by Ilan, Israel’s main rehabilitation facility for disabled civilians. 

Since late 2023, Israel ParaSport Center has also become home to a new organization, SHESEK, founded by Bachar, Kramer, and Prof. Shayke Hutzler to meet the demands of a post-October 7 Israel. The three, realizing the dearth of services for disabled evacuees and those wounded on October 7, pitched the idea to Bituach Leumi (National Insurance Institute), which was holding a bid for an organization that could contribute to the war effort. SHESEK secured the funding and has since taken on Israelis from across the country.

How does SHESEK help people?

SHESEK is a Hebrew acronym for “rehabilitation and sports in the community,” but the organization focuses on much more than that. Its motto is guf b’nefesh holkhim yad b’yad – “body and soul go hand in hand.”

As of Shavuot, it will have 25 centers across the country. Kramer spoke to me of what inspired the trio’s decision to start the organization: “It was clear to us from the start of the war that with our facilities, our knowledge, our experience, and our staff – with everything we have to offer – we’d have to play a role.

“We didn’t know exactly what it would be,” he continues, explaining that while war veterans receive their rehab and services from the Ministry of Defense, civilians evacuated from the North or the Gaza border due to the war, as well as those with temporary injuries, “are in situations of limbo.” These people, Kramer says, are not entitled to the same services, thus many of them fall through the cracks.

Hutzler, who has been at Israel ParaSport Center since 1987 and is head of the Graduate School at Wingate Institute, describes the “tremendous shock” he felt at the start of the war. He straight away considered the way the war would impact people with disabilities: “Every moment, Israelis were thinking that maybe rockets would fall, and if you’re a person with walking disability ….how do you get to a shelter?”

He looked for a solution and almost immediately created an online program. Along with other instructors and sports educators, the team created content that could be accessed by new members or those who attended Israel ParaSport Center previously but could no longer go to the center (which was closed for the first three weeks). 

Hutzler says they were able to reopen despite “not having the proper shelters, because the authorities understood that participation in physical activity is extremely important mentally.” 

And so SHESEK was born.

SHESEK is born

Together, the team decided to put “everything we have on the table, which is facility, knowledge, experience, time, passion, professionals.”

Kramer estimates that of the 150,000 to 200,000 evacuees, there are a few thousand people who’ve had prior disabilities and are not receiving treatment.

In the last few months alone, SHESEK has taken in over 100 new people.

However, SHESEK faces challenges not only because locating those in need in the first place is very difficult, Bachar says, but also because of the significant mental and physical regression many clients experience through the months of no intervention. 

“Many people that I’ve been in contact with have said to me, ‘You’re the first person who came and asked me what’s going on with me in regard to my disability and how you can help.’ Or they say, ‘I used to get physiotherapy where I lived, and now I have no services. You’re the first service that came to contact me or any sort of physical rehabilitation.’”

Kramer adds, “so we at SHESEK are there for them. We’re there for the evacuees with disabilities. We’re there for people who don’t know who to turn to, like Supernova survivors, who are terror victims.”

The team says that SHESEK may involve sending a trainer or a therapist to spend an hour with someone in the North who has a disability and doesn’t receive any services, or they might visit a rehab hospital and offer services to children who were injured before the war but are unable to receive the proper treatment due to the burden on rehab centers.

Kramer estimates that half of what they do at Israel ParaSport Center is psychological. He gestures toward a girl on the basketball court who is using a wheelchair adapted for the sport. He says she had a spinal cord injury two years ago at age 16, left school, and now doesn’t have as much social interaction. She comes from an Orthodox family and will not go back to school. 

“She learns wheelchair basketball here. But much more importantly, she spends time with people her age. She spends time with people of similar injuries. That alone is 90% psychological.”

Bachar says that they try to group children in their programs by age, demographics, and ability so that aside from the exercise and movement, they can extend their social circle. A lot of the people who go to the center, of all ages, face some form of isolation or barrier, and the center works to overcome that.

The services for everyone under SHESEK are provided free of charge.

What do they regard as the biggest challenge moving forward? Kramer and Bachar say that they are most worried about continued funding in the coming year. A large part of SHESEK’s budget comes from Bituach Leumi; the rest is from Jewish donors. The Bituach Leumi bid was granted only until the end of 2024, so the team worries about how they will move forward in 2025. 

There is fierce competition for funding for Israeli charities right now. Kramer says they are competing with MDA, United Hatzalah, the IDF and others for donations. He wants to make the case that what they do at SHESEK will continue to be important after people return to their homes. 

“I don’t see how, on December 31, 2024, we call tell groups that are operating under this project right now that we’re done,” says Kramer. “I don’t see how this can happen. So we’ll have to find other sources.” 

And many are returning home. A group they were working with in Tiberias have now returned to their homes in Sderot.

It was very important for the team to be on the road as such, and not just based at Israel ParaSport Center in Ramat Gan. Hutzler explains that many people cannot drive to the center, be it for economic or disability barriers, so they wanted to take SHESEK to them.

“Our center, for example, has developed something in the South, in Beersheba.” He says this particular center, providing activities in the desert for about 100 people, has a strong Bedouin presence. Other centers, in the North, have many Druze and Arab clients. The center is fully inclusive to people of all backgrounds.

Hutzler stresses that for disabled individuals, “exercise is not a luxury” but a necessity. “Adherence to exercise,” which is flexible in definition depending on the person’s capabilities, is the key to sustainable rehabilitation. However, he says, the majority of people “don’t have the knowledge and the patience to do it alone. You want to exercise at least three times a week, but two times where the minimum is having an effect.”

I ask them if the model for SHESEK is different from other organizations or countries, and whether their model could set a precedent for elsewhere. Bachar says that at the start, the team built a course that was mandatory for all trainers before they could work with clients. “It provides basic trauma training. Triggers. What a trigger is, and how to deal with triggers.”

They recognize that while disabilities are something faced around the world, “the situation of people with disabilities being evacuated is uncommon.”

Hutzler says they will definitely publish research.

He also flips the narrative and says that instead of thinking of how to apply experiences to this new organization, they can think about how the work of SHESEK can be applied to normal life. 

“The kind of outreach that we are doing and we have actually learned does not only [apply] to athletes. We’re not talking about athletes. We’re talking about people. Some of them are elderly, some of them are very young. This is special. This is unique. I think [it sets a precedent for] actually educating instructors in the community to understand that they have a huge market of people with disabilities, which needs a slightly different approach, a more personalized approach, an approach that includes knowledge of adaptation. Adaptation is a knowledge base, such as other things.”

And they will continue to adapt to the nomadic life of evacuees. This may involve “gathering, for example, in the cafeteria of the hotel and looking at the screen and doing exercise.” He says they can use the equipment of the hotels and monitor the evacuees from a distance. They also have an app developed alongside a start-up, which allows people to access tutorials and monitor progress. Even when there are no more evacuees, they can continue to do the work within communities, he explains.

Bachar talks about how people find them at SHESEK, aside from her working tirelessly to reach out to communities and individuals who might need them. She says she tours hospitals and gives presentations to departments to make them aware of the project. She received a call from one woman recently who said her physiotherapist had signposted her to SHESEK.

“Word is getting out”, she says. “The more we talk about it, the more presentations I give – it’s visibility.”

I ask Hutzler and Bachar if there was someone who inspired them the most since they started.

Bachar says that for her, a man with a spinal cord injury was the most profound experience. “He was C5 [cyclist impairment]. A social worker told me that there was someone with a spinal cord injury who was sitting in his room. I said, ‘Okay, let me meet him.’ When I entered his room, he said, ‘You’re the first person to even ask me if I need any physical intervention.’”

People with C5 are not able to move their trunk and lower body but can move their arms, meaning significant progress and improvement is possible in the upper body with SHESEK intervention.

“I brought one of our trainers, and since then he’s been working with him, and he said there’s actual progress. And he was hesitant. He told us that he hadn’t moved in almost a year.” She says that in a recent phone call, the man was “super cheerful.” 

This stands out to me on my visit, the way everyone receiving services seem to be enjoying their activities. This organization is changing lives, not just the clients’ but their families’ as well.

Before I leave, I ask Hutzler and Bachar for a statement about their mission at SHESEK.

Hutzler says, “It’s very simple: improve quality of life for people with disabilities. That’s why we are here. In the disability, there is an advantage for humankind. We need to look at the disadvantages that will improve us.”

And Bachar: “To help as many people as humanly possible.”■

For information about SHESEK services, email dekkel@iscd.com; Tel: (03) 575-4444; WhatsApp: 050-760-6260