Back in 2005, Paola Ruiloba along with her Mum and sister moved from Panamá to Jerusalem. There she attended a local Jewish high school mainly to get a better grip on the Hebrew language. Although it was in her sports classes (soccer, basketball and volleyball) where she received her highest grades, her continual participation with the teams had the knock on effect of quickly improving her Hebrew! Unfortunately she was asked to leave the school a few years in, as sadly after being on the receiving end of spiteful bullies she had started to make trouble elsewhere. As it happens, these things have a silver lining. Paola ended up moving to what is regarded as one of the best public high schools in Jerusalem where she met a girl who became her best friend, Maayan Levi. It was through Maayan that Paola found out about skating; ‘She took me to the skatepark one day and introduced her friends. They didn’t judge me on who I was they just judged me on my skating. As an athletic girl from high school, skateboarding made me feel like I could be myself and get judged on how good my skills were. I was at the time 16 or 17 years old.’
Words and Shots by Jenna Selby
COLLECTIVES is a series created by UK filmmaker Rachael Sherlock, in collaboration with Nike SB and SKATEISM
After a few years of skating together Maayan came up with the idea of starting a girl’s skateboarding group and put it to Paola. ‘I didn’t think it was an easy thing to do, or a simple one. But Maayan takes her skateboarding seriously and couldn’t stand the lack of support for the female scene. And through her I started to seen things differently. By the end of that same evening we had begun creating our logo with a chalk stone that we had found on the floor.’
Several styles and many name ideas later, the JSG group (Jerusalem Skater Girls) was born. There are now 24 girls in JSG in Jerusalem and 52 throughout the country.
The aim of the group is to develop and grow the female skateboarding community in Israel by organising events and competitions for the skaters. Together they also design and create skate related products including clothing. Paola and Maayan are also co-chairs of the Girl’s and Women’s Division of the Israeli Association for the Advancement of Skateboard. ‘We plan to give more exposure to girls in the skate scene in order to give them a sense of belonging, pride, confidence and freedom. We strive to raise the feminine skate level, to represent the girls and to change the perception about women in extreme sports and in skateboarding in particular.’
JSG currently run an annual contest with the non-profit organization @We.Skate.Israel and the Jerusalem municipality where equal prize money is offered to both the women’s and men’s divisions. Paola feels that skateboarding is one of the hardest sports to learn. ‘This is no joke, the girls and the boys are both working equally hard to get better and better every day and be the best version of themselves. Equal prize money is just a little demonstration of them both working as hard as each other behind the scenes of the skateboarding world. It is the right thing to do.’
But it’s not only the profile of female skaters that Paola hopes to raise and improve, she also feels that the outside world will be given an alternative view of people from Jerusalem by showing how the influence of skateboarding has brought people of different religions and cultures together: ‘Jerusalem is known as a problematic city, there are a lot of issues with the different religious factions in the city. It’s not only the Christians from Egypt (Coptos), the Greek Church or the Muslims., but also the Orthodox Jews who fight against the government – as they don’t want to work or do the obligatory army and don’t pay taxes. A lot of people in Jerusalem have a really radical mentality and an ideology on rights and politics, so much so that even the other cities in Israel criticise Jerusalem for being extreme.’
‘But for us, day-to-day, our city is like any other. By showing what we do through making films and giving exposure to the skaters we are bringing to light the underground world of this city which is way different to what you see on the news. All this is a great experience for a skater and also to promote a much more positive image overall.’
The skaters involved are as Paola mentioned from a variety of different religious backgrounds. Hana who is Jewish observes the Sabbath; the Jewish holy day and follows Shabbat. In practical terms the Sabbath starts a few minutes before sunset on Friday and runs until an hour after sunset on Saturday lasting approximately 25 hours.
For her this means that between those hours she can’t use her phone, drive a car or spend money (because it means someone would have to work to take it), it’s a day for rest and to disconnect completely from what makes her work or think about work. However, she is still allowed to skate. Yom Kippur as it turns out, is the favourite Jewish holiday enjoyed by JSG as it means there are no cars and all the streets are empty!
‘The skate scene in Israel is really small and everyone is a big family that supports each other. At the beginning the only thing I wanted was not to get bullied because of my accent, my hair or my appearance. Skateboarding has thrown me into a dimension of no race and colour. ’
Any last thoughts? “Be water my friend… and thanks to my family and friends in Panamá.”
