Way back in 2018, just after being appointed President of the Jerusalem Foundation, Shai Doron z”l resolved to create waves of opportunity, by launching the construction of the first-ever swimming pool in East Jerusalem. For Shai — a champion swimmer who believed every Jerusalemite deserved the same access to swimming — the fact that one-third of Jerusalem’s million residents in East Jerusalem had no access to a swimming pool was unbelievable, unfair and even immoral. West Jerusalem abounds in swimming pools.
Shai viewed closing this East-West gap as the mission of his life and he embarked on turning dreams into strokes as soon as he was President. Convincing city hall, donors and work colleagues, Shai championed the construction of a community swimming pool in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem’s largest neighborhood. He raised millions of dollars, obtained planning permission and the bulldozers got going.
Six years later, the first water in the Beit Hanina pool is finally here. Shai – who would have been the first to jump in – is no longer here.
But his vision does not live on paper. It lives in water, in the hundreds of East Jerusalemites who will learn to swim, dive, and splash in the new pool.
One pool. Hundreds of lives. A ripple that will reach the whole city.