(haipo) - In the midst of the pain of loss and grief, there are moments that manage to distill the image of the person who is no longer there. This is how the members of the "Maccabi Haifa" taekwondo club feel when they remember the late Daniela Petrenko, who was an integral part of the club since her childhood. The people who knew Dana remember her so vividly that it seems to them that she is still present among them. She is in the memories of the students and parents, in their thoughts For the training she gave, the events she participated in and her bright smile, which she gave to those around her.
A natural leader
Daniela was murdered at the Nova Party on October 7, 23. She left behind a huge void, not only among her family, but also in the small and warm community of the Haifa Taekwondo Club.
Daniela started training at the club when she was 12 years old, and stood out in it from then until today as an outstanding athlete and a natural leader. She participated in competitions in Israel and abroad and won many medals, and also worked as a guide for young people and accompanied groups of children in camps and educational events.
To commemorate Daniela
A family and public effort to commemorate Daniela through the establishment of a memorial bench in front of Dado beach - a beach she loved - is widely supported by club members. Olga Gluzman, Daniela's mother, applied several times to the Haifa municipality with a request to build a heart-shaped bench in memory of her daughter, but was refused.
Now the parents of the club and their children have united to promote the call to commemorate Daniela in a place that was so significant for her, and as part of the motivation for the initiative - they started a petition. (See link to the petition at the bottom of the article)

"She was a role model"
"She was a role model," says one of the mothers at the club. "My children learned from her what stubbornness is, what dedication is, and what mutual respect is. It is impossible not to find a way to commemorate her here in the city where she grew up and which she represented so honorably."
Haifa Municipality gave a response to Haifa:
"The municipality of Haifa participates in the grief of the Petrenko family and of all the families who lost their loved ones in the Nova Party and the "Iron Swords" war, and grieves their pain. The municipality intends to initiate a collective commemoration for all the victims of the campaign at the end of the war. In the meantime, the municipality established a commemoration committee headed by Prof. Yossi Ben Artzi. The committee will meet after the holidays and establish uniform criteria for the approval of private initiatives that private entities request to establish with their own funds to commemorate their loved ones."
The response of the Haifa municipality does not match the title. why?
Mayor Yona Yahav should be contacted directly, and I am sure that he will immediately use his connections on behalf of the respectable family who killed their daughter unjustly, and was murdered by wrongdoers who hate Jews and Israelis alike!!!!
I would be very happy to help you.
For years, many commemorative benches have been placed in the gardens, on the streets of the city and in many places, and each family, for a certain amount, buys the bench from the Haifa Foundation, while the foundation adds a metal table in which the commemorative words that the family requested to be written are written. The foundation, for its part, undertakes to maintain the benches. Haifa is full of such benches in many places.
One of these benches is placed near the Haifa municipality.
Any person from Haifa or outside may purchase a bench and commemorate it.
In one of the gardens in the Ein Hayam neighborhood there is an extensive garden with benches and facilities dedicated entirely to the memory of a Haifa resident who was murdered in the fall of the Twin Towers in New York. As far as I know the garden was established with the money of the family and their relatives from all over the world. I also commemorated my family members in one of the gardens in the city.
You must reach an agreement with the foundation and the municipality of Haifa to erect a memorial bench in Daniela's memory and I hope that the municipality will approve the location of the bench in the place you request, and at the same time join the commemoration that the municipality is planning.