I grew up in a small peripheral development town called Ashkelon. Today, Ashkelon is much more developed, but during the good old days of my childhood, it was not much different from other northern Negev Israeli communities like Ofakim, Netivot or Sderot. However, we did have something very unique. One neighborhood in our town, Afridar, was totally different from the others: It was built by South African Jews who had a dream to imitate and integrate their old country into their new one. Afridar looked like a suburb of Cape-Town: Small two-family homes, huge public lawns, various sculptures and monuments along with funny street names. My family was living on South Africa Avenue, between Johannesburg and Kapstat streets.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about our neighborhood was the public tennis courts. They were built there as part of the South African culture, but for us Israeli kids, tennis was foreign and strange, not a serious sport. When we skipped school, the major dilemma was whether we should go and play soccer or basketball. No one played tennis. It was only for old people with white outfits and heavy English accents. However, one of our classmates, a boy named Momi, happened to live right across from one of these tennis courts and during his free time (and without any of us noticing) he used to practice tennis. To cut a long story short: Our friend Momi, better known as Shlomo Glickstein, became the Israeli tennis champion when he was only 17, the first professional Israeli player and tennis guru. He beat some of the world’s best known tennis players and was rated 22 in the world. All of it, strange as it sounds, only because his home was incidentally located in front of this old public tennis court and his hidden talents were exposed.

Many years later when tennis became much more popular here, I shared this story with one of UJC MetroWest’s leaders, Alan Goldner, while he was the chairperson of our Partnership 2000 Committee of Ofakim and Merchavim. Alan, who also served as the American chair of the Israel Tennis Centers association, came up with the idea to use the center in Ofakim, which was still not that crowded, to develop the culture of sports and computers among kids in town. As a result, a computer room was donated for the tennis center by the Goldners and their friends and a P2K program called “Excellence in Motion” was launched. Now, thousands of kids from Ofakim come to the center on a regular basis to improve their athletic, social, and computer skills as well as to play tennis. The “foreign” sport became part of Israeli culture because it was there. If you build it, they will come.

Golf is yet another foreign and unpopular sport for us. The first and only exclusive golf club in Israel was built many years ago in the most exclusive city of Caesarea. Across the highway from Caesarea there is a small development town called Or Akiva. The golfers would invite the kids from Or Akiva to come there in order to get to know the game and help maintain the course. They conducted workshops and fun activities in the town’s schools and community centers. Soon enough, and not surprisingly, Or Akiva became the golf capital and over the years, many Israeli champions emerged from this small development town.

Here are another two unique examples regarding sports in our partnered community of Ofakim:

•Oren Smadga became the first (male) Israeli Olympic medalist when he won a bronze medal in Judo in the Barcelona Olympics of 1992. Oren was raised in Ofakim.

•Bella Antilov became the youngest female Israeli chess champion when she was only 18. Bella, like Oren, was raised and educated in Ofakim.

So how come Judo and Chess champions, which are not very typical sports in Israel, developed and excelled – Davka (in spite of everything) – in Ofakim? The answer is simple and it even rhymes: “Morris & Boris.” Morris Smadga is Oren’s father and a Judo coach. Boris is Bella’s father and a chess master. They both brought their expertise and talents from their countries of origin. Since these two sports do not require special facilities, Morris & Boris created their own microcosm of Judo and Chess in their own “back yards” of Ofakim. When the culture was brought to town and absorbed, it was only natural for their own kids to become the champions. It was there and available.

Marvin Goldklang and Jeffery Rosen are two leading business people, supporters of UJC MetroWest and owners of various sports teams. They now joined forces with others to bring professional baseball to Israel. I shared with them a painful message for American ears to hear, but I'll say it anyway: Baseball is still a very unpopular sport in Israel and most of us think that it is an extremely boring ball game. Introducing it to Israel should be well thought through. There was one previous attempt to develop a professional league here but it was not successful. I assume there were several reasons for this failure, but to me the main one was the fact that it was held in an American cultural bubble. The bigwigs, the coaches, the players, the audience, the locations were all foreigners. For folks in Ashkelon, Ofakim, and the like, it never happened. Even the local sports media almost totally ignored it and I had to read the Anglo press in order to follow the league.

Therefore, I very much like the approach that Goldklang and Rosen are taking. Their company, “Baseball Field of Dreams” is seeking to form an international caliber baseball league in Israel, but at the same time they are trying to create a baseball culture, by working from the grassroots, by educating children about this unique sport, by conducting free baseball clinics, and providing an attractive experience. They are creating a fun atmosphere on top of the game itself. They also want to build a few high-level facilities, perhaps in peripheral areas. A couple of weeks ago, we witnessed one first step of such grassroots efforts. The Israeli Association of Baseball, now in agreement with “Fields of Dreams,” conducted a city-wide baseball clinic in our own partner town of Ofakim. Ofakim received the privilege of becoming a pioneer town in introducing baseball to Israel, mainly because of the UJC MetroWest connection. 250 kids took part. They received instruction in batting, fielding, and running bases from eight experienced coaches. This was only the “opening pitch” in conducting a full fledged baseball program in Ofakim. It will take some time before we will be able to see the Glicksteins, Smadgas or Antilovs of baseball, but this is the way to go.