Yoav Dolan
Yoav was born on June 20, 1977 and lived until January 25th, 2002. He had a strong sense of justice and identified with those in pain. Just as he could laugh and dance and sing, he could cry without shame for those who suffer.
Yoav was a happy child, the oldest of three brothers. He was very intelligent and success in school came easily to him. He was creative and wrote poems and stories from the age he could write. The youth movement, Zofim, was a central part of his life and he gave all his energy to it.
As part of his vision to join opposites, he set up a scout movement in an underprivileged area of Tiberias, while he was on a kibbutz nearby during his army service.
This website, which is dedicated to education for coexistence and understanding, fulfills Yoav’s vision of building bridges, of healing wounds through listening and getting to know our common humanity.
He believed in children who at heart all belong to one whole. It is our hope that his vision will take root. By making our small contribution we honor his memory and add one brick to the building of peace in our region.
Yoav wrote a guide book for school trips and embarked on a mission to Kosova, after the Serbia-Bosnia war to bring some joy to the children there.
He spent a year in India, learning Shiatsu, Hindi, painting and flute playing. Eventually he returned to India to continue his search for his inner truth for a second year. On his return, full pf hope to bring his newfound knowledge home, he could not bridge the gap between India and Israel between his year of solitude and meditation, and a high pressured job he took on himself in the scouts immediately on his return. He became deeply depressed and took his own life.
It hurts us so much that with all the help we tried to give him, Yoav couldn’t fight the inner demons that turned against him. As he said in one of his poems, “it’s not easy to live in a world of hard, leather boots”.
The Dolan Family