Moriah Rimon (18), a young religious resident of Gush Etzion, recently defeated opponents from all over Europe as part of the prestigious "Dracula Romania" Taekwondo competition and received the bronze medal.
For the past 11 years she has been training in the martial art, and several years ago won fifth place in the European Championship and last year in the Dutch Championship.
This year's competition is the first in which it is in the adult category.
"I started in the second grade. We were looking for a sports class because I had all kinds of attention and concentration difficulties, and I signed up for taekwondo after my mother read an article about the martial art helping concentration," she says.
"Already on the first day I fell in love with the field and didn't miss any training. It started twice a week, a class for fun, and continued with training every day, a team and flights abroad for competitions."
These days, Ramon is serving in national service at a high school for at-risk youth in Jerusalem.
In the mornings she volunteers and in the evenings she trains in the settlement of Efrat.
"I won't say it's not difficult. I take the bus twice every day. In the morning I'm at school and then I drive back, arrive, recover before training and train. It's an hour and a half of training every day."
Moriah is the daughter of Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon, the regional rabbi of Gush Etzion, and one of the prominent rabbis in the national religious sector.
She says that she consults with him a lot, in day-to-day conduct.
"I don't see him in the hat of his role but as my father, but I do consult with him all the time. At first, my parents were not enthusiastic about me going to competitions, because they were a little worried that this was entering a very intense sport and that failure would hurt me, but they saw that it was really important to me and they are supportive Very me."
Ramon after winning the bronze,
Is it possible to be religious and be an athlete?
"The truth is that one of the biggest challenges in sports is the Sabbath. I don't compete on the Sabbath and that means giving up a lot of competitions and things that religion is less comfortable with. It has happened before that I prepared for a competition for a long time and then suddenly I found out that it is on the Sabbath and all the work supposedly goes to waste. I take it as a challenge which builds me as an athlete and gives me strength to continue."
"You can be a religious athlete. I don't think you should give up religion or sports, and you should learn to combine them. Follow your own path in terms of sports and not give up what you want and love just because it supposedly conflicts with religion, and on the other hand, stay in religion. For me, do something That he is against religion is a red line, and I find the balance to allow myself to compete despite this."
What are the aspirations? Olympics?
"This is my first year that I am in the 18 plus category, and right now my ambition is to continue competing in competitions to improve and refine myself. The truth is that I am less in the direction of the Olympics because of the challenge of Saturday. There are competitions that need to be passed and you cannot control an event that will take place on Saturday. There is no doubt that it is It sucks, but in the past it used to make me angrier. I used to want to change the whole world just so that the competitions would move to another day and I would go the farthest. Today I see things differently. I may not succeed in the world, but I will change myself and get where I want. Maybe the competition The big one is not within reach, but there are so many other goals I want to reach."
In Gush Etzion they expressed immense pride in the talented athlete who is making her professional way in the face of all challenges.
The head of the council, Shlomo Naaman, said that, "Moria brings a lot of pride to Gush Etzion, we expect her to soon join the coaching staff at our Gush and lead more girls to achievements in the field. Moriya has shown determination and perseverance, and she also put Gush Etzion on the map in the field of sports."
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