‘Dance makes you feel alive’

Michal and Ester Bitton are identical twin sisters, 22 years old, from Kiryat Shemona, who were displaced from home in the wake of October 7 because of attacks on the northern town by Hizbollah. Michal has finished her army service, but Ester remains in uniform because of the unit in which she serves.

For the past nine months the Bitton family has lived with relatives in the centre of the country near Netanya, helping out in the private kindergarten which the relatives own.

Three of Michal’s friends, with whom she served in an Iron Dome unit, were killed en route to their base on October 7. Michal explained: “It’s been very difficult for us, you don’t know from the beginning of the day to the end what will happen.”

But the twins decided to come to the Israeli Dance Institute “Machol Europa” summer camp, held last week at the University of Surrey, to “strengthen our roots. We love to see the Jewish teenagers from all over the world, to work with them and teach them dances. It’s great for them — and it really helps us”.

Ekaterina Vozianova from Kyiv and Anastasia Mikenina from Kharkov also know what it is like to live in a country hit by war.

Ekaterina, known as Kate, is 19; Anastasia is 18. The two Ukrainian teens said that for the first three or four months of the war the Jewish community centres, where they had taught IsraelI dance and run a full programme of Jewish cultural events, were closed. Kate spoke of some of the effects of Russian bombing — frequent electricity cuts meant “it was extremely difficult for me and my parents to go in and out of our apartment because we live on the 17th floor of our building”.

Both girls play an active part in their Jewish communities and spoke of the importance for them of teaching Israeli dance and learning new steps. “Dance is a way of helping people feel alive”, Kate said.

Other participants in the week-long dance camp were youth leaders from Istanbul, teachers from the Jewish high school in Bucharest, teachers from a school which was flooded in Porte Alegre in Brazil,  and teachers from Cuba and Argentina.