New Shavei Israel program brings professional soccer to Bnei Menashe youth
Elad Israel and Yoel Kolshing have been soccer fans for almost all of their lives – which in their case is just nine short years. That’s the way it is with the Bnei Menashe, who start kicking the ball around almost as soon as they can say Shema Yisrael.
But never in the wildest dreams did Elad and Yoel imagine they would be walking out onto the field accompanying Israel’s leading soccer franchise, Maccabi Tel Aviv – dressed in the team’s distinctive blue and yellow uniform.
Elad and Yoel’s remarkable moment kicked off an exciting new relationship between Shavei Israel and the Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club Foundation. Other activities in the planning stages: soccer camp for Bnei Menashe youth, sponsorship of the Bnei Menashe’s annual Sukkot soccer tournament, and maybe even a visit by Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Bnei Menashe in India.
The Bnei Menashe connection was initiated by Josh Halickman, the new head of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s charitable organization.
Halickman is best known in Israel as “The Sports Rabbi” – a name he was given by Rabbi Avi Weiss in New York 18 years ago. (“I’m not actually a rabbi, but people say my sports knowledge is of rabbinic proportions,” he quips.)
A lifelong sports fanatic, Halickman has made it his personal – and now professional – goal to promote better understanding of Israel and Zionism through connections to the Jewish State’s sporting teams.
Halickman, 42, moved to Israel in 2004 and seven years ago started the website SportsRabbi.com to provide information on Israeli sporting events for locals and visitors alike. It’s the only website of its kind where English speakers can find out the latest scores from their favorite Israeli teams.
Halickman was just running SportsRabbi.com on the side – an accountant by training, he was working as the CEO and CFO of a tour company – when he was approached by the Maccabi Tel Aviv operation.
Would he be interested in upgrading the team’s English-language new media? Halickman jumped at the opportunity. The result is a state-of-the-art website (in both English and Hebrew) and an English language Twitter account.
Before long, Maccabi Tel Aviv came to Halickman with another, bigger offer. “They wanted to raise their participation in the area of corporate social responsibility,” Halickman says. Most major sports franchises in the U.S. and the U.K. have these kinds of foundations; Maccabi Tel Aviv wanted to play in the big leagues as well – both on and off the field.
Halickman left his job at the tour company and is full time now with Maccabi Tel Aviv. (SportsRabbi.com continues to run with a small volunteer staff.)
“The Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club Foundation will concentrate in three areas: youth and education, multiculturalism and social action,” Halickman explains.
Halickman had been following the aliyah of the Bnei Menashe and, in his new position, he contacted Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund, himself an avid sports fan.
The Bnei Menashe in Israel fit all three of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s criteria, Halickman told Freund. He would be happy to explore ways to provide afterschool programming and summer camps for the new immigrants from India.
For Shavei Israel, such a partnership would be a way for Bnei Menashe youth to learn “important values such as teamwork and leadership skills and to increase their likelihood of integrating into Israel society,” Freund told Halickman.
Halickman agreed to visit the Bnei Menashe communities in the north of Israel – Safed, Acre, Migdal HaEmek, Ma’alot, Tiberias, and Upper Nazareth – and look into creating a pilot program for the coming soccer season.
But first, would some of the Bnei Menashe be interested in attending a Maccabi Tel Aviv game? Halickman said he could make a few tickets available.
That’s how Elad and Yoel – and 50 of their Bnei Menashe brethren – found themselves in Netanya last Thursday (Maccabi Tel Aviv’s temporary home while their regular base, Bloomfield Stadium, is being expanded) cheering at their first professional soccer match in Israel.
“To have the privilege to walk onto the field with the other players in the team’s uniform is not something any child can do,” Halickman says, proud of what he made happen.
Wearing Maccabi Tel Aviv distinctive blue and yellow also connects the Bnei Menashe to Jewish history.
The team’s original colors were blue and white – those of Israel’s flag – but in 1942, a player approached the club’s owners and suggested they temporarily change the white to yellow, in order to show solidarity with the Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe who were forced to wear a yellow star in the ghettos.
“When the war was over and the world found out what had happened during the Holocaust, the team decided to stay with the yellow as an everlasting memorial,” Halickman explains.
Looking towards the future, Halickman says he would love to start a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan club in India. But what if it turns out the Bnei Menashe already support another team such as arch rivals Hapoel Haifa or Beitar Jerusalem?
“Well, they will all have to become Maccabi Tel Aviv fans,” he jokes. “They won’t have a choice!”
We have more pictures of Elad, Yoel and the other Bnei Menashe who attended last week’s game below.
(By the way, Maccabi Tel Aviv won by score of 3-0.)