Perhaps speaking before a crowd of nearly 500 on a stage in a grand ballroom was the perfect rehearsal for Hana Shvarzman, whose dream is one day to be on the big screen.
“I want to be an actress in Hollywood,” said Hana, a 12th grader at Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village.
The teen, 17, and fellow 12th grader Darya Dubrovsky, 18, represented Meir Shfeyah at Hadassah’s 2025 National Conference in Aventura, Florida, sharing with attendees the lifechanging impact the village has had on them.
Hadassah’s Meir Shfeyah and Neurim Youth Aliyah villages help put vulnerable Israeli, immigrant and refugee teens on a path to success. Students receive a full spectrum of help — shelter, food, counseling, education and other supportive services.
For Hana, the confidence she’s gained in her six years at Meir Shfeyah has played a huge part in helping her envision a bright future, taking her beyond the roles she played in the village’s theater program.
“When you’re living with many people, with many teenagers, sometimes it makes you feel more confident because it’s really different from a basic school. When you live in the village, you become an adult really fast because you have things that you need to do alone.”
While Hana was excited to first arrive at Meir Shfeyah — both her father and older brother are village graduates — she knew she’d have to put in some work.
“I think I understood in that moment that I needed to change myself and become a good student with really good grades.”
As someone who previously didn’t like to go to school, Meir Shfeyah was transformative for Hana. “I became a better person. I started to help people, to be nicer, to be happier,” she said.
She even participates in the leadership program. “I’m helping younger students, even with homework sometimes.”
She credits the staff and students at Meir Shfeyah for her metamorphosis, describing them as different from people in other parts of the country and more knowledgeable when it comes to helping her with her studies.
Without Meir Shfeyah, Hana believes she would have ended up on a different path. She said that Meir Shfeyah saved her from the possibility of a challenging road ahead.
“I got new brothers and sisters, new parents. I get so much love,” Hana said.
Darya was excited to speak on behalf of Meir Shfeyah at the conference. “It’s something that brings me light,” she said. “I’m enjoying every minute, every person that I met,” she added.
This is a far cry from the Darya who arrived alone from Ukraine through Naale (the international program that enables Jewish teenagers to complete their high school education in Israel for free) more than three years ago, due to the war with Russia.
“I was scared, to be honest, because it’s the new people, the new language, the new culture.… I need to do things alone. It was hard.”
But it was also exciting, she said, as her future was an unwritten mystery.
Now, Darya is feeling freer to approach people, to help them and to talk with them.
“All the crazy ideas that I have, I know that this idea will come true for me because of Meir Shfeyah and the people there. They’re always there for me to help me succeed.”
Darya wants to become a pilot. “Shfeyah can really help me a lot with it, with all the courses and all the pre-army sessions. There’s a lot of support. Support is the most important thing.”
Darya also takes pride in her participation in the village’s cycling team. A founding member, in fact, she trained hard and is now a part of the coach course, where she guides first-year cyclists. Through the team, she’s learned discipline and has found healing. “It makes my heart lighter,” she said.
With graduation on the horizon, Darya says she’ll miss “everything. Everyone. Every place…. In Shfeyah, I know that I’m never alone.”
As a youth counselor at Meir Shfeyah, Tomer Bar guides teens through their formative years, providing emotional and educational support from the moment they wake up to the time they go to bed. “Most of what I do is actually listening and being sensitive to their needs. And facilitating their potential achievement.”
“We want to show our gratitude to Hadassah. A lot of what Darya and Hana got in Meir Shfeyah was enabled through the support of Hadassah,” he added.
Hana and Darya also have Hadassah to thank for their newfound friendship. Though they knew of one another at Meir Shfeyah, it wasn’t until their time in the United States that a true bond formed.
Since 1934, over 300,000 students from 80 lands have graduated from Youth Aliyah. Find out more about Youth Aliyah.
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