We met with Oded Rahav (OdedSea), an entrepreneur/activist and one of the six swimmers to break the world record and swim the Mediterranean from Cypress to Israel. Oded Rahav talked to us about the amount of training and determination it took to achieve this. He said the three main things this took were humility, perseverance, and optimism, but as a team they needed humor, trust in each other and love of each as they are.
Achieving their goal took more than 1 try. On their first try, in 2013, they had to stop because of a storm that would have endangered them. Oded said that swimming in that weather was one of the scariest experiences in his life. The next year they found the perfect time for their second attempt (October is the best time of year) and finally got down to business. While organizing the swim, they decided to team up with NGO’s and called themselves the Sea Defenders. They wanted to call attention to the huge amount of plastic and garbage ruining the ocean, and to protest all the shark killings that happen every year. (For example; last year, over a hundred million sharks were killed, meanwhile only 11-12 people were actually killed by sharks.)
After his record breaking Mediterranean swim, Oded was one of the first to swim across the Dead Sea. He did this in order to raise awareness that the Dead Sea is shrinking by 1.2 meters a year and more than six thousand sinkholes have opened up around it, ruining agriculture, livelihoods and endangering animals. He swam with a group and they all wore these crazy looking face masks to make it easier to breathe and protect them from the enormous amount of salt in the water.
Later, he and a bunch of other swimmers organized a swim from San Diego to Mexico to raise awareness for the suffering of refugees. Because what they were doing was such a big deal, they were allowed to cross the border without their passports. There were even a bunch of little kids to greet them on the other side. Oded Rahav is one of those few people who sees a problem and does something about it. He takes action. That’s what Zionism is all about. Seeing a problem and doing something about it. And these are problems that affects us all. Whether we choose to believe it or not, humans have been extremely irresponsible with how we use nature’s resources. The U.S. and Israel are the two countries who use the most plastic bags, which can be found all over the ocean. Because of human activity, the Dead Sea is disappearing. But there are ways to stop this from happening if we just work together and take action. Oded Rahav knows this, and it’s time we learn it too.
Achieving their goal took more than 1 try. On their first try, in 2013, they had to stop because of a storm that would have endangered them. Oded said that swimming in that weather was one of the scariest experiences in his life. The next year they found the perfect time for their second attempt (October is the best time of year) and finally got down to business. While organizing the swim, they decided to team up with NGO’s and called themselves the Sea Defenders. They wanted to call attention to the huge amount of plastic and garbage ruining the ocean, and to protest all the shark killings that happen every year. (For example; last year, over a hundred million sharks were killed, meanwhile only 11-12 people were actually killed by sharks.)
After his record breaking Mediterranean swim, Oded was one of the first to swim across the Dead Sea. He did this in order to raise awareness that the Dead Sea is shrinking by 1.2 meters a year and more than six thousand sinkholes have opened up around it, ruining agriculture, livelihoods and endangering animals. He swam with a group and they all wore these crazy looking face masks to make it easier to breathe and protect them from the enormous amount of salt in the water.
Later, he and a bunch of other swimmers organized a swim from San Diego to Mexico to raise awareness for the suffering of refugees. Because what they were doing was such a big deal, they were allowed to cross the border without their passports. There were even a bunch of little kids to greet them on the other side. Oded Rahav is one of those few people who sees a problem and does something about it. He takes action. That’s what Zionism is all about. Seeing a problem and doing something about it. And these are problems that affects us all. Whether we choose to believe it or not, humans have been extremely irresponsible with how we use nature’s resources. The U.S. and Israel are the two countries who use the most plastic bags, which can be found all over the ocean. Because of human activity, the Dead Sea is disappearing. But there are ways to stop this from happening if we just work together and take action. Oded Rahav knows this, and it’s time we learn it too.