At the beginning of the month, 13-and-a-half-year-old Hillel Cohen defeated every opponent in his path and stepped onto the podium for the first time after winning the Israel MMA championship, held in Abu Ghosh with hundreds of athletes from across the country.
“If someone had told me a few years ago that Hillel would win the country's championship, I would have been sure that person was delusional,” his mother, Talia Cohen, said. “It seemed like the furthest thing from what we were going through.”
“Hillel started first grade and everything was normal. He is very smart and skilled,” she said. “At the end of first grade, I was diagnosed with cancer and our family life was completely turned upside down. My husband stayed by my side to help me through the difficult battle, and our eldest daughter, Lidor, who is now 29, was left to take care of her younger brothers.”
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Cohen standing on the podium after winning the Israel MMA championship
(Photo: Lidor Cohen)
“Hillel took my illness harder than anyone can describe. His studies collapsed, and from a talented, happy child he became withdrawn and emotionally distressed", says his mother. As his condition worsened significantly, his family enrolled him in a special school for children coping with emotional difficulties in the Haifa area. “That was the point when, sadly, Hillel’s decline began,” his mother recalled.
“I didn’t even enroll him there in person or accompany him on his first day because I was fighting the disease in hospitals at the time. He was constantly signaling distress, but we were told by school staff that the problem lay with him. Only years later, after a serious violent incident, I realized I had to take him out and bring him home.”
Today, Hillel studies at Ort High School in Beit She'an and is surrounded by friends from the city. “Several months passed from the moment I took him out of the school in Haifa until I found a framework in Beit She'an that agreed to accept him, and he is happy there,” she said.
‘I was looking for a way to defend myself’
Hillel arrived at his first MMA training session almost by accident. “I started training two and a half years ago at Oz MMA in Beit She'an. My brother trained here and people in the city were talking about the coach, Oz,” he said. “I was looking for a place to train because I was having difficulties at school. Kids were hitting me and I was looking for a way to defend myself. One boy punched me in the face. I felt that kids were humiliating and beating me because I was weak.”
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Aiming for the European championship. Coach Oz Moshe (right) with Hillel Cohen
(Photo: Lidor Cohen)
The connection between 25-year-old coach Oz Moshe and Hillel was immediate. “I opened the gym two months before the war. During the war I was called up and served more than 300 days in reserve duty in Gaza and Lebanon as a combat engineering soldier,” Moshe said.
“One day Hillel’s mother contacted me and asked me to include him in my classes because he was suffering physical violence from other children. She asked for personal training, and we began a process focused on resilience, improving self-image and, alongside that, learning self-defense techniques and MMA tools that would give him solutions for dealing with violent children. The goal was to give Hillel tools for self-defense in any situation, not, God forbid, to attack another child.”
Hillel began with private sessions twice a week. After gaining confidence, he joined group training with other teenagers and later became Moshe’s assistant coach. “His confidence in training grew. A few months ago he lost in a competition. Since then he pulled himself together, adopted an intensive training routine, and a few days ago he won the Israel MMA championship,” Moshe said.
“We are also aiming for the European championship,” the proud coach added. “For me, he is a role model for any child who faces setbacks or struggles and still finds the strength to rise and grow through personal empowerment."