Roital Gluska Cohen is a woman who has one sentence that must not be said to her:
that something is impossible.
When I asked her, for example, when the interview with her would be scheduled, she suggested six in the morning, since she wakes up at half past four to tick the house before she leaves for her activities.
And if you haven't heard her name by now, it's time.
She is 52 years old, born in Kibbutz Kfar Maccabi, a senior swimming coach in the past, a player on the Israeli water polo team who was active until the age of 42. For the past six years, she has been volunteering as the chairwoman of the water polo association.
Last summer, the sport became the most successful ball sport in Israel, when the men's and women's national teams qualified for the European Championship, while the women qualified from this championship to the World Championship - an achievement that has not been recorded in the last 40 years in any ball sport.
In a country with only one pool suitable for volleyball training, this is an unimaginable achievement.
And all because they told Gluska (yes, there is a connection to the mythological singer Ophir, on the father's side) that it would be impossible.
The Israeli women's water polo team is celebrating its promotion to the World Championship.
"I told them that now we have a new path and new goals,"
On top of that, she also owns a private business in the field of fashion, with a designer clothing store, as well as a bridal makeup artist and a mother.
She and her husband, Yanai, support a family in the settlement of Shemshit in the Lower Galilee, and are the parents of Nir (19), who was born with cerebral palsy, sons Oriya (7) and Neria (two and a half years), whom she brought into the world through a surrogacy procedure, and Sasha (31), whom she adopted into the family - and today Lives in Haifa.
After organizing the children for the new day, Vinay took them out to the frames, she goes up to the second floor, takes pictures of clothes, uploads the photos to the business's Instagram, sits down to answer emails - and at ten in the morning goes to work in the store.
Later, she goes to the union at the Wingate Institute in Netanya and has enough time to jump to Tel Aviv to bring goods - until the evening, when she returns home to organize meals and showers.
"Warn that Nir will not survive"
On the day we visited her, she went to arrange, as a bridal makeup artist, the daughter of her best friend, Ofir Eshel, on her wedding day.
She arrived at ten in the morning, pulled out a backpack and a trolley from the car, and for six hours stood on her feet and did not rest for a minute, as she went from the happy bride to the mother and attendants - styling their hair, adding extensions if necessary, applying make-up and occasionally acting as a psychologist.
The phone, which she put aside, did not stop vibrating in connection with sports matters.
"The people of the football team know that when I'm with a bride, I usually don't answer. They text me if there's something urgent, and I go out for a moment during a break and answer all the union's needs," says Gluska Cohen, who until now refused a comprehensive interview, but following the incredible success of the national teams Shela decided it might be time.
as a bridal makeup artist.
"No one raises an eyebrow",
"I don't really have free hours for myself," she beams.
"My children make me pay for my shortcomings at home. When the European Championship was here, it took a while to get them back to sleep in their beds. The little son would come in and just sleep on my legs, hugging me tight so I wouldn't move. That's how I spent a month without sleep.
"In the little time I have to myself, I like to cook and take the jeep and travel in the countryside. I also turn on the TV and watch a marathon of movies and series, so that my head is cleared and I don't think about the next goal."
At the beginning of last July, Israel hosted another major event in water polo, when the European Championship for women up to the age of 19 was held at the Olympic pool in Wingate. Spain beat Hungary in a tight final there, and won the trophy.
Just before the distribution of the medals, at the closing ceremony, members of the Shalva band came up to perform, making the audience happy and able to get the audience up to dance.
Members of the Israeli national team also came on stage and joined the singers.
In a corner to the side sat Gluska Cohen, visibly excited, shedding tears.
It was important to the chairman to bring the band, whose members have various disabilities, to the ceremony, and she even raised funds for that purpose.
She was of course thinking about Nir Shala, her eldest daughter, who was born at 24 weeks pregnant weighing 690 grams, with cerebral palsy.
All of this happened exactly three years after Reutel's brother, the late Amir, died of cancer at the age of 15. According to her, she and her late brother had a close relationship, and "his death affected me mentally and damaged my ability to get pregnant."
After she gave birth to Nir, she went through ten years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, after which she embarked on a surrogacy procedure in Georgia.
According to her, this journey also encountered difficulties, which she overcame through a legal process.
In between, 17 years ago, she came across an ad in a newspaper looking for a warm home for children in the Naalah project (youth coming before parents). She responded to the ad and adopted Sasha, then 14, into the family's bosom.
"I always raised Nir alongside people without disabilities, and it was always important to me and my husband that she grow up in a normal way. To constantly challenge her. Nir was born with crazy ambition, and we constantly tried to create for her the tools with which she could be independent.
with her husband and three of her children (Nir on the right),
"When Nir was born, the doctors told us that there was a 90 percent chance she wouldn't survive. I had a huge fear of losing another child, like I lost a brother. I remember the first week of being premature, every time the monitors beeped and she stopped breathing, I would just run away. Until one of the nurses put Nir Ali, and from that moment I couldn't move away, I would sing to her."
How does Nir fit in today?
"She is in school, will study until the age of 21 at the Democratic High School in Kfar Vardim. She is a very active girl. She goes out all the time on weekends under the frameworks of the 'Beit Ha'Galits' and 'Ko Haim'. Does many more activities than I do, moves from camp to camp. When she gets home She is with the phone like girls her age, but she has her challenges. There are often frustrations."
The surrogacy procedure was not easy for you either.
"In the first surrogacy I learned that I also know how to fight. I learned that it's okay for lawyers to tell me what they think, but I will go my way, against their advice. Thank God, the judge thought I was right.
"One of the reasons why we decided to have another child through surrogacy, despite the enormous financial cost, was the thought that the day I'm gone, I wouldn't want Uriah to deal with helping Nir alone. There should be someone else to help take care of her. Although it seems to me that she will take care of both of them in the end."
"To also succeed in the Olympics"
As mentioned, two and a half weeks ago the water polo industry recorded its best achievement ever.
Gluska took an irrelevant sport, with ridiculous budgets and with less than 300 registered athletes, and led it to the world championships.
In the world of men's sports, which is so characteristic of Israel, it is no small matter to find a chairperson in the sport of football - and a successful one at that.
"It's challenging, leading the industry. It's not an easy job. I took it on six years ago because of a sentence a friend told me: 'This industry always has problems.' I told myself that it couldn't be that bad, and that I was tired of hearing the steam These things. When I arrived, I just started changing things. I didn't really know what I was taking on. The union was in the red by NIS 600,000, more than the budget it received at the time. There were no infrastructures, no people, no teams at all age levels. The women's team operated at half Power. Everything had to be built from scratch.
"Water polo for me is a deep scratch. There isn't a child who grew up in Gush Zebulon and didn't get deeply scratched by the sport. When I started, at the age of 24, I wanted to be the best, so I went in the mornings to train with the men, and in the afternoon I added another workout to make up for gaps."
What reactions do you get about your sports activity?
"Many times people come into my house and think I'm just a make-up artist. Then we talk about sports and everyone realizes that I do other significant roles. The reactions are encouraging. No one raises an eyebrow in surprise."
Do you feel like you have to prove more than your predecessors?
"I arrived at the position at the age of 46, when there were businessmen in front of me. I said to myself, 'How will I do it?'
'How will I cope?'
I felt like I was jumping into an empty pool, with sleepless nights, when I didn't know how I would pay salaries, who would pay back the deficit. Then I started to activate national teams, a step that was also going into the unknown. I had many breaking moments, because I take it very much to heart and I care. This In my mind. There were many fights over the pools, which led to a lot of crying and frustration."
Why are there so few women who lead in sports?
"Maybe they don't believe in themselves and maybe they don't get the opportunity. I believe that women know how to do it just as well as men, maybe even better. Ego doesn't drive us. For me, it stays at home when I go to work. Women should create more opportunities for themselves and not be dependent In men. Just believe that they can do it - and at most they will fail."
What things would you change in Israeli sports?
"The whole way in which people are exposed to sports should start already in kindergartens. There is a big problem today in bringing children to sports and giving them the values of sports. And there is another big problem - that a coach is not a profession. We see it in water polo, coaches have to do other things besides sports .
"I would very much like to change the sports infrastructure. Also create more exposure for this sport on television. We need to broadcast much more than soccer. The characters in soccer are not always characters that Israeli children should be educated about. We need to turn our athletes into educational characters, and the water polo industry has the ability to do that ".
In a moment there are Knesset elections. Do you have a message you would like to convey to the Minister of Sports, Hili Trooper?
"I admire Hili, with his values and character, he is a rare person. If he remains the minister of sports, I would like to make a change in the field of facilities. We need to learn more about how things are done in Europe, from countries that have succeeded in this. When we tour Europe, we see that Israel is a third world country or Wednesday in facilities.
"In addition, I would like them to understand that volleyball players do not earn money in the associations, while they want them to become professionals. The girls of the national team do nine units of water a week and exercise every day, and some of them also work at the same time. You cannot continue to rely on their goodwill without compensation. They need to start earning Money from the state. Israel needs to admit that they are working for her in the pool."
Are you thinking of reaching more senior positions in sports?
"I don't see myself running for politics. I'm too honest and say what I think. I see myself much more as a performanceist. But I can be the chairman of the Olympic Committee, if people see me as worthy when Yael Arad finishes her post.
It's something that could interest me."
After the water polo to the peak, where else can you go?
"It's never enough. We had a party after the European Championships, and I told everyone there: 'Forget what you did, now we have a new path and new goals.' 'Wow, how did we get to the European Championships', now they say 'Wow, how did we get to the World Championships', or 'how did we qualify for the European Championships with the men without budgets'. So now we not only want to perform at the Olympic Games, but also want to succeed there."
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
