"Don't call me a dwarf": An inspiring interview with Shani Israeli
Hani Lifshitz met with Shani Israeli, who was born with short stature, and heard from her about the parents who did not give up on her even during pregnancy, about the daily coping, the search for a partner, and the reactions of the environment.
Even before Shani Israeli was born, her parents knew she would be of short stature. During a routine ultrasound, the technician noticed that the length of the arms and legs did not match the week of pregnancy. Within a short time, her parents reached a specialist who diagnosed that she was expected to be born with achondroplasia.
"He told them: You are going to have a short-statured girl. It doesn't affect anything, only the height," says Shani. According to her, her parents sat afterwards in a cafe and reached a clear decision: "This is our child, and at every stage of life we will deal with what is necessary."
After the birth, according to her, staff members came to the hospital and suggested to her mother to leave the baby there and continue with her life. Her mother's response was unequivocal. "She told them: This is our child, we are raising her with love."
For Shani, that decision of her parents was the basis for the confidence with which she grew up. "My height never made me feel that I was different from anyone," she says. "I think it is clear because of the confidence I came with from home."
"Don't call me short-statured, call me Shani"
One of the things that is important for Shani to clarify is the way people treat her. "I don't like the word 'dwarf'. No one who knows me calls me a dwarf. Also doesn't call me short-statured. They call me Shani."
Already in the first grade, she decided to speak for herself in front of her classmates and explain to them that she was shorter than them, and that as they grew, the gap between them would be more prominent. "I stood in front of everyone and told them who I am," she recalls.
Over the years, she has also encountered reactions that stemmed from a lack of familiarity. In the national service, for example, she met a teacher who spoke to her, according to her, as if she were a little girl. Others asked her if her internal organs were also different. "Everything is normal," she emphasizes. "Only the height."
Alongside the confidence, there are also daily difficulties. One of them is actually shoes. Shani says that she wears size 34, but needs a wider width, and therefore often she is forced to order shoes with custom sewing. At home and at work, she has found over the years her own solutions to reach high places and manage in a world that was not built according to her height.
"The sentence that always goes with me is: willpower," she says. "And another sentence that they instilled in me at home: what you project to society, that is what society absorbs."
Profession, independence, and relationships
After the national service, Shani studied optometry, and today she works as an optometrist. Even there, simple adjustments were sometimes required. During her studies, when the stage arrived where she had to perform patient examinations, one of the lecturers asked how she would reach their eye level. "I never thought about it," she says. In the end, a solution was found for her in the form of a stool.
It is precisely in the field of relationships that she feels the reality is more complex, because here the decision is no longer just in her hands.
Shani says that not once do people try to introduce her to short-statured men just because she is also short-statured. "I have no problem with a short-statured man," she says, "but I want them to introduce me to a man because I am Shani, not because I am short-statured. See the whole of me."
According to her, she understands that there are those who may be deterred, but she would like them to agree first to get to know the person in front of them. She also emphasizes that height does not prevent her from starting a family and giving birth to children.
In recent years, Shani has turned her life story into a lecture with which she reaches schools, high schools, organizations, and groups of national service girls. At first, she did not understand at all why they were asking her to tell her story.
"People told me: You must tell your story. And I said: What do I have to tell? I am living my life."
It is precisely there, she discovered, that the mission lies. After the lectures, children and teenagers approach her and share their difficulties and their lack of confidence. One of the girls once asked her: "How do you do it? I am ashamed of myself. How can I reach a place and not be ashamed of myself?"
For Shani, the answer lies largely in what she received from home: not to define herself through height, not to be afraid of the world, and not to wait for it to adapt itself to her.
"I am used to taking life and finding the comfortable ways to make it accessible to me," she says. "If I reach for something, I will pass it."
Hani Lifshitz summarizes for her what becomes clear throughout the entire conversation: "You are not special because you are short. You are special because you are Shani Israeli."
