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Nati did not let blindness limit him. Instead, he demonstrated how to see the world from the heart - Walla! news

2021-07-24T07:04:43.833Z


Although Nati Bialystok-Cohen went blind at the age of 15, he completed degrees in economics, business administration and law, served in senior positions in the Ministry of Communications, ran the Center for the Blind, worked for the Language Academy and also surfed. Only cancer stopped the man who believed that language could change the attitude towards people with disabilities, and died at the age of 54


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Nati did not let blindness limit him.

Instead, he demonstrated how one can see the world from the heart

Although Nati Bialystok-Cohen went blind at the age of 15, he completed degrees in economics, business administration and law, served in senior positions in the Ministry of Communications, ran the Center for the Blind, worked for the Language Academy and also surfed.

Only cancer stopped the man who believed that language could change the attitude towards people with disabilities, and died at the age of 54

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  • Blind

  • People with disabilities

Eli Ashkenazi

Saturday, 24 July 2021, 09:55 Updated: 09:56

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"Where sadness cannot touch, hope will not touch," Nati Bialystok-Cohen wrote in the song, which was also published in a book of songs that bore the same title.

"Where sadness, my beloved, touches, do not worry, happiness will also touch."



In his life he knew Bialystok-Cohen, a man of many verbs and an activist for people with blindness and disabilities, sadness and difficulty, and at the same time he knew how to inspire hope, break the limit of vision and inspire faith and optimism among many people who needed it.

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Bialystok-Cohen presents his book of poetry, "Where sadness can not touch" (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

He was born in 1967 in Bat Yam.

When he was 11 he was injured in the eye while playing football.

Due to the pain he went for a medical examination, then was diagnosed as having a genetic disease that would lead to vision loss.



A few years later, at the age of 15, he began to go blind.

"At 17, when receiving the first order towards raising the army and do a driving license, I felt I was worth less than others," said journalist Michal Rabinowitz, an article prepared here 11.



Then he motioned his way step later in life. "You taught me there's no such A limited human thing.

"There is a person with a disability and if he, the person, does not allow the disability to set boundaries for him - then there is an omnipotent person," his sister praised him, describing the way that characterized him.

More on Walla!

The Nazis were looking for a color in Birkenau.

Luckily, without understanding a word, he raised his hand

To the full article

Gifts, hard work and choice

Indeed, the time came for army service, he insisted enlist as his peers, and served as a volunteer on IDF Radio, where he served as narrator.



Eulogy consisted of nurse tank Ten things learned from it. Among the things written also learned from "common and high intelligence are gifts you received at birth .

That knowledge is a force that you work hard to accumulate (and combined with all that you can make wonderful and beneficial use of), and vocation is the choice a person makes - a choice that gives power and satisfaction many times greater.

You, my brother, had all these - gifts, hard work and choice. "

Bialystok-Cohen with his wife Iris, at the ceremony of receiving an honorary fellowship from the Language Academy (Photo: Official website, Zohar Shabbat)

Upon his release from military service, he began studying for a bachelor's degree in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Immediately afterwards he went on to pursue a master's degree in business administration at the same university.

Later, he also studied law at the Ono Academic Campus - a degree he completed three years ago.



After graduating from the Hebrew University, he began working as a senior privatization coordinator with the Government Companies Authority and a few years later moved to Bezeq, where he was a member of the board and in charge of antitrust.

Later, from 2013-2009, he was a senior professional advisor to the Director General of the Ministry of Communications.

"I am a person with blindness, not blind"

Five years ago, he was appointed director of the Center for the Blind,



focusing on

leading moves for social change, promoting and exercising the rights of people with blindness or visual impairment.

In recent years, he has worked extensively on a bill to make television and Internet broadcasts accessible to the blind and visually impaired.



"In recent years, I have had many working hours with Nati," said Yuval Wagner, a friend of Bialystok-Cohen and chairman of the Israel Accessibility Association.

"I knew a professional, stately, sharp, focused, tactical, smart, always carefully dressed, with a sense of humor, with an amazing ability to articulate, a person who knows how to balance his family, work and even experience new experiences - recently surfing the sea."

"A professional, stately, sharp, focused person."

Bialystok-Cohen with Yitzhak Herzog (Photo: courtesy of the family)

Zohar Shabbat from the Center for the Blind says that following his love for the field, an extraordinary project was born, in which 13 surfing clubs across the country responded to the center for the blind's request and each of them trained a man with blindness.

Last September, they also managed to hold a surfing competition in which Nati also participated, who was already undergoing cancer treatment.



If surfing at sea was a new hobby he acquired, then his love of the Hebrew language accompanied him for many years.

As such, he contributed and worked to promote two major enterprises of the Academy of the Hebrew Language: the establishment of the "Menveh" (Academy Residence) and the Historical Dictionary Enterprise.

Thanks to his dedication and actions, he was awarded the honorary fellowship of the Hebrew Language Academy three months ago.

Bialystok-Cohen with MK Shirley Pinto (Photo: courtesy of the family)

He believed that words and phrases should be used to change perceptions about people with disabilities.

"Indeed, changing language will not cure my blindness or eliminate my disabilities, but if expressions are used that allow society to understand the meaning of life with disabilities; see the person, his abilities and needs; and accept our social responsibility for the needs of others - then the limitations society places For people with disabilities, it will be reduced, "he said.



Accordingly, he stressed: "I am 'a person with blindness', I am not 'blind'. I see others and I am not blind to his needs; I see the world and I am not blind to the changes that take place in it."

Close your eyes to see

More than a year ago he contracted cancer, and after the medical treatments failed he decided not to continue another round of treatments.

"I want them to remember me upright, active, independent," he told Rabinovich.



"I learned from my older brother to close his eyes to see," his sister wrote in his obituary, "I learned that you can see everything and especially people differently and even better with your eyes closed. To see really, without bias, without bias. To see from the heart."



This week he passed away and he is 54. He left a wife, Iris;

Three children - Sapir, Jordan and Shai;

One-year-old granddaughter July;

And his sisters Michal and Tali.

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Source: walla

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