ziv aboud – Jonathan Bloom Photographer

Revital Dahan, A mother for a child with special needs, October 2025

"Since my son, who has special needs, was born, my sleep has been closely tied to his. Until the age of 13, he never slept through the night. Every two or three hours, he would wake up and come to my bed: 'Mom, come cover me,' and at 5:00 in the morning, he would tell me to get up. Later, he began sleeping better, but I kept waking up out of habit. Around that time, COVID began and intensified Itamar’s obsessions. I started seeing a psychologist, who recommended closing the door to my room as a limit that can help us both. He began to respect the boundaries, and today he only needs me to cover him before he goes to sleep."
Meiron Cheruti, Olympic Swimmer, September 2025

“Before competitions, there are all kinds of methods I developed to help myself fall asleep, like listening to recordings of Tibetan bowls, on the recommendation of my mother, a biology PhD who took many courses in complementary medicine. Otherwise, the voices in my head take over—the good angel and the bad angel. The good angel says, 'You’re amazing,' 'You’ll win and set a world record.' The bad angel tells me, 'You’re going to swim badly.' Then a third voice comes in, trying to silence the argument between the two angels, creating an annoying triangle of voices."
Boaz Ibrahim (Abu Idan), Lieutenant Colonel Reserve, October 2025

“I sleep Noum Ghazaalny like a gazelle — always alert. My sleep is filled with anxiety; falling asleep is only partial, as if the body rests but the mind keeps running, like a GPT box. Every sound of the wind or a door slamming jolts me back into thoughts of combat. I served thirty years in the IDF, fifteen of them in Gaza. At the end of 2004, I was called up with my soldiers to the explosion at the JVT outpost, when Hamas blew up tunnels they had dug beneath it. Five Arab soldiers were killed there and six were wounded. I spent the entire night scraping bodies from the ground. Since then, something inside me has broken.”
Maya Dubiner, owner of a dog boarding "Dog Miracle", August 2025

“There’s hardly a night when I don’t dream, and most of my dreams are about dogs. I had a long period of recurring dreams about a real incident involving a run-over dog near a Golani base in Kafr Qara area. In reality, I sent someone there to rescue the dog, which had a broken leg, and someone from the animal rescue organization adopted it. Today, the dog is alive and kicking, but in the dream, the dog is always dead."
Micha Davis, A Bass Trombone player in the Israeli Philharmonic, September 2025

“The musical passage that deprives the most sleep from all bass trombone players, is a small section at the end of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. There’s a very, very quiet part written for two clarinets, two baritones, and a bass trombone. The problem when trying to play very softly on a trombone is that there’s a chance no sound will come out at all—just air. It’s extremely difficult to find the right balance with the rest of the quintet, and by the end of the passage, my heart is always pounding so hard I’m sure everyone can hear it.”
Yuval Mendelson, Musician and Teacher, July 2025

"Before I go to sleep, I put something on the TV and fall asleep to it, while the television keeps running. Once I started watching The Fly—a great film, but pretty disturbing and gross. The kids asked to join, and I agreed. I tell them it’s fun to be scared by movies because they’re on TV—the fly won’t jump out of the screen at you, we’re safe. We live in a reality filled with stress and fears, and the movie becomes a kind of sublimation. Of course, if they ask to stop, we stop. I saw a horror film as a child, too; It was a movie that scarred me—but also shaped me, and helped define my personality and artistic taste.”
Sharon Ben Avi, Evacuated to Grand Beach Hotel in Tel-Aviv, June 2025

"Sleep, for me, isn’t about the place—it’s about the conditions. I need a bed, a pillow, and cleanliness, and it doesn’t matter where. Turns out I don’t have any special sentiment toward my specific bed. I don’t think I’m repressing what happened, I just need sleep more than anything else. What good will it do to constantly think about the damage, how much, and when I’ll be compensated? There’s trauma from the explosion, but I try to think of positive things before bed—to turn lemons into lemonade. I fantasize about the renovated house, and the future of my life and my children’s lives. Even when reality is shattered around me, I can always dream."
Raya Adani, The Widow of Eliran Yagar, a high ranked soldier who died in the war, July 2025

"My late husband, Eliran, and I always used separate blankets - he preferred a thin one, while I used a heavy duvet. Since he passed, I’ve been sleeping with his thin blanket, and the thicker duvet is like Eliran’s presence in the bed. I even began sleeping on his side, to feel closer to him. I understand that Eliran will not return, but at night I can almost sense him beside me."
Hadar Reichman, Trail Marker, June 2025

“Our sleeping hours are usually from 9:00 PM to 4:00 AM, so we can work during the cooler parts of the day. Our goal is to mark the first line at first light. It’s not easy for me to wake up so early, but you get used to it. It feels like we’re living parallel to the rest of the world. We wake up into silence, before the rest of the world wakes up. During the morning drives, we’re all quiet in the car, out of respect for the morning. Every day we watch the sun rise, and then we have a whole day alone in nature. It’s healthy—truly good.”
Ziv Aboud, Survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, October 2024

"During the shiva for my nephew Amit, I met his friend, Ido, and we became close. Now he’s joined the army, and I find myself thinking a lot about how there’s someone important in my life whom my boyfriend, Elia doesn’t know. Elia has been held hostage in Gaza since October 7. When he comes back I want him to accept Ido. In the dream I had, I’m with Elia in the house we imagined together: I’m setting the Friday night table with a baby in my arms and another crawling on the floor, and Elia is cooking in the kitchen. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Ido. He’s in uniform, a soldier, and in the dream, Elia knows and loves him. That’s exactly the future I’m hoping for." (Elia was released in February 2025, after 501 days in captivity)
Yossi Landau, Founder and volunteer of ZAKA since 1989, October 2024

“When the kids were little, I didn’t talk about my work at all. But after the terror attack in 2001, they happened to come across photos of me in action, and I had to explain to them about my work with ZAKA. Then they started waking up at night. The most intense moment was eight years ago, the night of Purim - I dealt with a father, a child, and a baby who were killed in an accident, and the child was dressed as a policeman, just like one of my kids. Later, I accompanied that family, including when another of their children took their own life. Every night during that time I would sleep next to one of my children.”
Yaira Miraz, going to the shelter with her carer during the Iranian attack on Israel, June 2025

"Since the Iranian attacks, I sleep in a T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms, and socks, with my shoes next to the bed—so I can go straight down to the shelter just as I am. At my age, having gone through so much, I feel almost immune to fear. I've already lived my life. When we hear the booms of the missiles from the shelter, Ruana, my carer, hugs me. It's her first war. My life started with war, and life has kept rolling ever since: these friends and others, being with those you love, and being without those you love. It’s a flow that never stops, and I try not to get stuck."
Yair Lavi, Psychotherapist, Researches Sleep Paralysis, November 2024

“I began researching sleep paralysis because it's something I experience myself. It started suddenly when I was 16. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I couldn’t move. I saw the door to the room open, and a figure like a black cloud entered and stood over me. I felt it was trying to attack me, and I tried to fight back but couldn’t move. Only after a lot of effort was I able to move, and the cloud vanished. It was a very stressful experience that repeated many times, sometimes accompanied by the feeling that death is near, as if my soul was being pulled out of my body."
Yafi (Yafa) Solomon, A Nurse in the Recovery Department, May 2025

“I don’t have time to do everything I want and also to sleep. I don’t watch television, and I only read books on Saturdays when the girls are napping. I sleep because I have to. I’m well aware of how important sleep is, but caregiving is an act of self-sacrifice, and my sleep is part of that sacrifice. When a patient wakes up at four in the morning, I want to be there to hold their hand and say, ‘I’m with you, everything is okay.’”
Sofie Berzon Mackie, Survivor of the October 7 attack on Be'eri, April 2025

“I haven’t had a good dream since October 7th. My dreams are terrifying, more like night terrors than dreams. I simply cease to exist and wake up into a black void, like being inside a grave. I have many violent dreams of the massacre: for example, the gun jams, the terrorists are coming, and I can’t manage to operate the weapon, or I shoot and miss. Sometimes the intensity of the dream is so strong that it stays with me all day. When I was on medication, I would be knocked out until morning in a dreamless sleep, but maybe we need sleep to process what we’ve been through.”
Shay Golani, Farmer, April 2025

"As a farmer, my sleep is synchronized with the seasons. From March to October work is intense, I’m awake around 4am and some days work until 10pm, so sleep is limited. But from November, when the orchards begin to go dormant, I can allow myself to sleep more, say, from 11 to 6:30. On rainy days, I might even stay in bed until 8am, though this year there haven’t been many of those. My sleep is tied so tightly to my work that all my children were born nine months after winter. In spring, I simply don’t have time to make babies."
Shani Nahmias, Returned from a ski vacation with a broken arm, February 2025

“Before bed, I have my usual cream ritual. Two weeks ago, on a ski vacation, I broke my arm—not on the ski slopes, but during a grocery run. Truly the silliest way imaginable. Since then, I’ve been asking my partner to apply my creams, and he’s amazed by how many I use: face cream, body lotion, foot balm, hair treatment. Recently, I added a microneedle roller—a small wheel with fine needles that I roll over my face to revive the skin. I also do face yoga, which is basically making silly expressions before going to sleep. It’s all part of how I cope with turning 50.”
Sapir Boskela, firefighter, January 2025

"After October 7th, my mental state wasn’t good. I didn’t work for two weeks, and I even thought about leaving the fire department. The thoughts about how many times I narrowly escaped death that day completely paralyzed me, and for six months, I suffered from insomnia. I would wake up every half hour in a panic, from nightmares about terrorists coming to kill me or the sound of gunfire. At night, I was alone with the thoughts that kept resurfacing, and only when I saw daylight would I feel some relief. I started sleeping during the day, because I felt safer when people were awake around me—it allowed me to release the state of alertness I’d constantly been in."
Roi Weinstein, A Crane Operator, April 2025

"It's hard to stay focused during a 12-hour shift on a crane, but concentration is critical—every move I make could endanger the lives of the workers below. It’s very easy to get confused after ten straight hours and poor sleep. The worst fatigue usually hits around 2 p.m. I try to eat light and move as much as I can within the space constraints—sometimes I go out to the steel beams and do a few pull-ups. Sometimes I eat a hot pepper to wake myself up. Every year, there are dozens of bodily injuries and hundreds of property-related accidents."
Roi Levy, Musician, March 2025

"I have a strange sleeping disorder. I eat very little during the day, and only about an hour, after I fall asleep, my body remembers that I’m hungry, and I wake up with an intense desire to eat. It's like that since my late teens, it’s in the family genetics. They say the Syrian Grandpa Yaakov used to fry an omelet in his sleep. I always find my way to food in the middle of the night, even if it means sneaking into the closed hotel dining room kitchen."
Raphael Agion, Researcher of Jellyfish's Sleep, September 2024

"During the first two years of the research, I focused mainly on trying to wake the jellyfish to induce sleep deprivation and thus prove that they need sleep recovery to recuperate. But in all my attempts to create sleep deprivation, we didn’t observe any sleep compensation the next day. On the contrary- for three days afterward, they didn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t understand how that could be—how could something be stronger than the need to sleep? Then I began experiencing my first episode of chronic insomnia, and one morning in the lab, I had a 'Eureka!' moment. I realized that stress can be stronger than the need to sleep. That’s what was happening to me—and what I was causing the jellyfish."
Noga Or, Suffers from anxiety from the war, December 2024

"Sleep is no longer calming. Not just because of the noise and sirens, but also due to the constant state of alertness. I don’t have a Mamad (reinforced security room) at home, and the warning time is so short that it’s impossible to reach the neighborhood shelter in time. I have to stay updated on what’s happening, so three TVs are running constantly at home, even in the bedroom, each on a different channel. I only turn them off when I go to sleep. Every weekend I stay at my mother’s place, who lives in assisted living in Herzliya, and only there do I sleep well. I feel like a child, peaceful and safe."
Noam Partom, Poet, June 2025

"At the age of 29, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Every time I had an episode, I received a lot of steroids—they helped, but they severely disrupted my sleep. I would sleep about two and a half hours a night, and the insomnia lasted about a month and a half each time. I tried meditations, but mostly I was frustrated, because it was entirely a chemical issue. At first, I used the alertness for writing—I was very creative—but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’m naturally energetic and lively, but after what happened with the steroids, any major mood shift made me worry that I was manic. I wrote about it in my poems."
Nili Gototer, Surgery Doctor, August 2024

"My sleep is chaotic — I'm a mother of twins and I do seven to eight hospital shifts a month. Most of the time I'm so exhausted that if I'm home putting the kids to bed, I fall asleep with them. Their beds are arranged in an L-shape next to ours, and I pass out like a starfish, one hand on each baby. I'm like the Hulk in The Avengers, when he says, 'That’s my secret — I’m always angry.' My secret is that I’m always tired. I define sleep as a hobby I never get to practice."
Muataz Shlata, Prehistoric Archeology Researcher, May 2025

“Before I go to sleep, I close my eyes and go on an imaginary journey to the heart of the sun at the speed of light. It takes light eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach the sun. In the first second, I see the moon swelling, filling the sky, and a second later it returns to its normal size. After that, I’m surrounded by complete darkness and see the sun growing larger. I leave behind all the world’s complexities. If I haven’t fallen asleep on the way there, I drift off on the way back to Earth.”
Moshe Cohen, Sailing Instructor, Lives in a Yacht, June 2025

"At the marina, when there are storms, the boats crash into one another, but my body already senses when the next hit will come—I've simply become part of the motion. These are the nights I enjoy the most. Sometimes I skip sleep, go up to the deck with a blanket, and photograph the lightning striking the masts—it's the most beautiful show in town."
Liya Naidich, Flight Attendant, June 2025

"When I started working as a flight attendant in 2016, I didn't understand how to fall asleep in such a cramped space. But today, I sleep better there than at home. I'm disconnected from all the daily distractions—no phone or computer—so I enter a quietness I don't have at home. There's only the white noise and the plane's movements, and I feel like a baby in the womb.”
Hari Levi, Musicain and Clothes Designer, September 2024

“During the time I lived in London, I was very disconnected from my regular life, and on top of that, this was at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. My dreams there were like a stocktaking of my memories, but the memories mixed with nightmares. I often dreamt about friends from school, many people I had already forgotten in real life, and in the dreams I kept arguing with them—about things that never actually happened.”
Eldad Shitrit, Sleeps in a separate room from his wife, February 2025

"When I finished my studies, I spent a month sleeping in a cabin by the sea in Thailand. Every night, I would get drunk and sleep deeply. It was perhaps the first time I slept in a “normal” place alone, and felt at peace. When I returned from Thailand, Livnat and I moved in together but slept separately. For me, sleep is an intimate thing that needs to happen alone. I think it's weird that people sleep together."
Einat Landa, Jungian psychotherapist, May 2025

“About a year ago, I was in Budapest while my dog, Ziggy, was sick, and I was deeply worried he might die. In Budapest, I had a dream that I was lying beneath a giant tree, with a massive trunk, and I couldn’t see the treetop—only that a great deal of light was shining through. In the dream, I told myself that I was probably dead, and that thought both frightened and moved me at the same time. I felt it was a place where my soul could expand. When I returned from Budapest, thanks to the dream, I was able to accompany him through his final months with acceptance and devotion.”
David Demari, Musician, October 2024

“In most of my dreams, I have superpowers. This week, for example, I dreamed of a giant dragon, and I was an angel who could control its fire. I realized it wasn’t using its power for good, so I took away its fire and scattered it among all my brothers, and together they became a new dragon — but they too misused their power. I struggled with what to do and decided to spread the fire to all the people in the world.”
Aya Dagani, Lives in an Urban Kibbutz, October 2024

"Light and noise don't bother me when I sleep. It's a skill I developed thanks to being part of a youth movement, where you get used to sleeping with other people in the room. I even learned to sleep through snoring- I synchronize my breathing with the snores of whoever is in the room with me and turn it into a meditation. As a child, I grew up in a lively home. In the mornings, my dad would turn on the radio at full volume, partly to wake us up, so I developed the ability to sleep with the radio channel "Galei Tzahal" in the background. Now I also listen to the radio in the morning."
Alon Derfner & Amit Malihi, Newly-Wed, January 2025

Amit: "He was called up for reserve duty in Gaza the morning after we got married!” Alon: "The first two months of married life I slept with ten men, on rocks. I slept all over the place during reserve duty. During one operation, we slept for a week in a house in Gaza, a beautiful house by the beach. There were constant explosions and buzzing from our drones. At first, everything wakes you up, but it becomes background noise, and you get used to it. Then, only the unusual explosions wake you, and there’s at least one every night."
Agi Bar-Sela, 93 Year Old Holocaust Survivor, October 2024

“A year ago, I lost consciousness at the entrance to the mall and woke up the next day in the hospital. It turned out I had a fracture in my hip and needed a joint replacement. Since then, my movement has been more limited. My sons brought me an electric bed. I don't think I need it, but I can't argue about everything. In the meantime, they haven't removed the old bed, so I also ask myself, "Why do I need two beds in my room?"
Adele Raemer, Evacuated From Kibbutz Nirim Since October 7, August 2024

"Not long ago, I dreamed about my close friend Judy, from Nir Oz. She was kidnapped and murdered on October 7, and from time to time, I dream about my late husband Laurie, who usually appears in his work clothes. The dreams are so vivid. Nothing special happens in them, they simply exist, until I wake up. It's like losing them all over again."

personal > A Light in the Darkness

When we go to sleep, we prepare to cross into another world in which the unconscious mind takes over. The transition is fragile, easily disturbed by thoughts and feelings from our daytime experiences, so we prepare - we read, scroll, watch TV, share intimate moments with our partner. We have a bedside table with things that help us through the night. And when we wake in the morning, we have a variety of rituals as we prepare again for the day. This project began after the October 7th War in Israel, when a good night’s sleep became something of a luxury for many Israelis, not only those directly traumatised by the death or kidnapping of their loved ones, but for the whole of Israeli society. The project looks at how we sleep; the dreams and rituals that get us through the night.

Revital Dahan, A mother for a child with special needs, October 2025

Meiron Cheruti, Olympic Swimmer, September 2025

Boaz Ibrahim (Abu Idan), Lieutenant Colonel Reserve, October 2025

Maya Dubiner, owner of a dog boarding "Dog Miracle", August 2025

Micha Davis, A Bass Trombone player in the Israeli Philharmonic, September 2025

Yuval Mendelson, Musician and Teacher, July 2025

Sharon Ben Avi, Evacuated to Grand Beach Hotel in Tel-Aviv, June 2025

Raya Adani, The Widow of Eliran Yagar, a high ranked soldier who died in the war, July 2025

Hadar Reichman, Trail Marker, June 2025

Ziv Aboud, Survivor of the Nova music festival massacre, October 2024

Yossi Landau, Founder and volunteer of ZAKA since 1989, October 2024

Yaira Miraz, going to the shelter with her carer during the Iranian attack on Israel, June 2025

Yair Lavi, Psychotherapist, Researches Sleep Paralysis, November 2024

Yafi (Yafa) Solomon, A Nurse in the Recovery Department, May 2025

Sofie Berzon Mackie, Survivor of the October 7 attack on Be'eri, April 2025

Shay Golani, Farmer, April 2025

Shani Nahmias, Returned from a ski vacation with a broken arm, February 2025

Sapir Boskela, firefighter, January 2025

Roi Weinstein, A Crane Operator, April 2025

Roi Levy, Musician, March 2025

Raphael Agion, Researcher of Jellyfish's Sleep, September 2024

Noga Or, Suffers from anxiety from the war, December 2024

Noam Partom, Poet, June 2025

Nili Gototer, Surgery Doctor, August 2024

Muataz Shlata, Prehistoric Archeology Researcher, May 2025

Moshe Cohen, Sailing Instructor, Lives in a Yacht, June 2025

Liya Naidich, Flight Attendant, June 2025

Hari Levi, Musicain and Clothes Designer, September 2024

Eldad Shitrit, Sleeps in a separate room from his wife, February 2025

Einat Landa, Jungian psychotherapist, May 2025

David Demari, Musician, October 2024

Aya Dagani, Lives in an Urban Kibbutz, October 2024

Alon Derfner & Amit Malihi, Newly-Wed, January 2025

Agi Bar-Sela, 93 Year Old Holocaust Survivor, October 2024

Adele Raemer, Evacuated From Kibbutz Nirim Since October 7, August 2024

personal > A Light in the Darkness