Dana

Long before becoming an attorney, Dana sought to touch what and who is found on the margins of society or on the edge of the road. With those uncounted, with what is untold. Perhaps because she grew up on the stories of her father, who worked as a residential group home counselor, and the stories of her mother as a young girl and new immigrant from Morocco.

Law school was not a dream. The legal world was perceived in her eyes as sharp, cold, and not exactly pursuing justice or peace. But she found in it an entry point into a person's world at the precise moment when they no longer have a choice but to allow someone in: termination of employment, debts, family crisis, criminal proceedings - situations requiring a person to pause, observe, choose. And that choice, even when forced, can become a turning point.

"The law is an excellent tool for practical assistance to people, and it can be a deeply empowering tool if used correctly."

One can erase a debt, but if nothing changes inside, the debts will pile up again. One can rescue a woman from a violent system, but without deep internal work, the cycle might repeat itself. One can realize all rights, but it is no less important to realize capabilities and talents. So she acts with sensitivity, making reality accessible, explaining risks and chances, leaving room for deliberation. Restoring control to a person through small decisions, allowing them to be an active partner in their life. She learns from every person how to overcome, how to think creatively, how to pave a path - how to ease the burden, if only a little.

"Just having another person in the picture can ease the burden. And that relief is sometimes very significant."

Dana views pain as material that can be worked with. Pain, in her eyes, holds an honored place in human experience. Like labor pains: painful, yet signaling. Indicating when and how to push, when and how to need, when and how to grant life. Living in the country, and especially in Jerusalem, only sharpens this. It is a restless life, an effort to find rest - a kind of challenging growth bed shaping the conditions of action and continuous learning.

Over the years, Dana met hundreds of people at different life intersections. From every encounter, from every story, from every person, she gathers and holds moments of attentiveness, sight, and insight. She treasures them like someone guarding a treasure. And this is indeed her treasure: the treasure of the heart. Real gold. Today at Peles, Dana guides the team, accompanying the supporters, with professional guidance, emotional processing, and burnout prevention. After all, "we are all always both helping and being helped."

"Many challenges can be overcome, as long as there is someone who listens to those who help as well."

Working in a multicultural team is also not an abstract ideal, but an everyday practice. Dana is aware of cultural gaps. She sees how people shape narratives and how narratives shape people. She knows it is not easy to hold both ends of the rope, especially when the ends are split. But in Dana's eyes, that is all the beauty: creating anchor points precisely in the least stable place. Maintaining connection, communication, and what binds us and connects between us, precisely when everything around threatens to separate.

There is constant action in her: solving, streamlining, promoting, developing. But behind the resourcefulness and determination, there is also a longing to rest and move within worlds of body, earth, and creation. Day by day she reminds herself: to feel the sunlight, to stroke the grass, to look at the sky, to notice the changing of seasons. Because even mending the world needs to inhale and exhale: to breathe.

"This is my way of life: to see complexity and find beauty in it"