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American Football Kicks Off Another Season in Israel
Jacob Gurvis | JTA
T he year was 1999, and Jonathan Hauser
was working as a concierge at the
famous King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

At the time, Hauser was playing for the
Jerusalem Lions fl ag football team, a part of the
American Football in Israel organization. The
league was 10 years old at the time but lacked
adequate playing fi elds. One day, he spotted a
face he knew from TV in the hotel lobby: New
England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Hauser told Kraft about American Football
in Israel — which Kraft, despite being a regular
Israel visitor, did not know existed — and
connected him with Steve Leibowitz, a veteran
journalist who moved to Israel in 1974 and had
been leading the development of the sport in
Israel. Just a year later, Kraft inaugurated the small
Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem with a fi eld
only 80 yards long (instead of the regulation
100-yard length in the NFL). The AFI, which
started with touch football and later expanded
to fl ag football and adult tackle football, had
found a fi eld.

16 FEBRUARY 9, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
The AFI kicked off its season on Jan. 18 in
Bet Shemesh with a matchup between the
Bet Shemesh Rebels and the Jerusalem Lions,
in front of a sold-out crowd of 400. Around
2,000 players, coaches and referees are now
involved in the league throughout the country.

The adult tackle league features eight teams
from diff erent cities who compete in an eight-
game regular season, followed by playoff s
that culminate in the Israel Bowl championship
game in the spring. Other programs for men,
women and children of all ages are off ered in
cities across Israel.

“The dream of building football in the country
is due to the partnership and friendship and
help of Robert Kraft, without any question, and
his family,” said Leibowitz, a New York City
native and longtime Giants fan.

Leibowitz had the dream since the 1980s,
when he and a group of journalists put together
a sports club to watch American football by
pirating the signal from the Armed Forces
Network. That inspired them to start the league.

In 2017, Kraft donated $6 million to open the
Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem, which
Leibowitz said is home to the only regulation-
size American football fi eld in the Middle East,
plus facilities for soccer, basketball and more.

“My late, darling wife Myra always used to tell
me that until I start building football in Israel, I
would not win anything with [the] Patriots,” Kraft
said at the 2017 dedication. “That happened
in late 1999, and we won our fi rst Super Bowl
in 2001. Now we have fi ve championships,
and I can’t ignore the connection between our
continuing to support development in Israel
and our great accomplishments.”
‘Should’ve called a timeout’
Players from AFI have gone on to play college
ball in the United States, most notably Yonatan
Marmour, who in 2021 became the fi rst Israeli
to play Division I football. Bet Shemesh coach
Charlie Cohen, a yeshivah teacher and salesman
who moved to Israel from Massachusetts in
2000, added that some athletes play in Israel
during a gap year before trying to make the
jump to Division II.

In the early years of football in Israel, Leibowitz
noted that the players were mostly American
immigrants or children of immigrants. But now,
he says there is mostly “Hebrew in the huddle”:
Nearly every team outside of Jerusalem is
entirely Hebrew-speaking.

Football player graphic: Yevheniia Matrosova/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Football fi eld background: efk s/iStock/Getty Images Plus
‘HEBREW in the Huddle’