A Tel Aviv Pion
eer player hurd
les Israeli fototball images: Doron Dotan; Robert Kraft: Courtesy American Football in Israel
g steam in Israel.

Am erican football is gainin
Some cities do have
Arab players, as well
as immigrants from
Ethiopia and Russia.

Leibowitz remarks
that he is especially
proud of one notable
AFI alum: American-born
Ron Dermer, Israel’s new
minister of strategic aff airs
and a former Israeli ambassador
to the United States. Leibowitz called
Dermer, who played fl ag football, a “celebrity”
in Israel’s football community.

Leibowitz, who serves as president of AFI,
acknowledged that the sport will never surpass
the popularity of soccer or basketball in Israel.

But the strides the league has made are
undeniable, and the AFI hopes to build three
more football stadiums, with plans in motion for
regulation-size fi elds in Haifa, outside Tel Aviv
and in Beersheva.

In another sign of development on the world
stage, Israel also hosted the 2019 European
Flag Football Championship and the 2021 Flag
Football World Championship. In July, said
Leibowitz, the AFI has been invited to bring
a national team of top players to play in Fez,
Morocco. He said it’s the fi rst time an Israeli
team will play a Moroccan team in Morocco,
likely in any sport.

And with the 2028 Olympics in the not-too-
distant future, Leibowitz noted that the AFI is
working on a squad that could very well qualify
for the soon-to-be-announced fl ag-football
competition. an opponent in
an American fo
otball in Israel ga
me. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft at the Kraft Family
Sports Campus in Jerusalem
He added that the league
honors the late Myra Kraft,
who was also very involved
in the sport’s development,
by stitching her initials onto
the Israeli players’ jerseys
when they play abroad.

For Cohen, football is at the
center of his Jewish practice —
and helped inspire him to become
a rabbi.

“Without sports, there is no Jewish identity
for me,” he said.

‘I fell in love with the sport’
Cohen, 53, said he was kicked out of Hebrew
school as a child and had all but walked away from
his Judaism when he was coaching Pop Warner
football in Sharon, Massachusetts. His winless
team squared off against a powerhouse squad
from nearby North Attleboro and won, 13-12.

“That was a really watershed moment for me,”
said Cohen. “I took that to heart, as a person,
and as a Jew.”
He explained: “Here it is, you’re a football
coach, and you’re demanding that your team
has character. Your team shows up for each
other. If you have a loss, come fi ght for your
guys, don’t quit. … I said to myself, if I were to
demand my little peewee football team turns it
around, well, I’m going to turn it around, too.”
He re-engaged with Judaism and ultimately
immigrated to Israel, where he became a rabbi.

Cohen began as Bet Shemesh’s off ensive line
coach, then became head coach last season,
leading the Rebels to the semifi nals, where
they lost by four points.

And no, he’s not over the loss: “We had the
ball with two minutes to go. Should’ve called a
timeout and calmed them down. You live and
you learn.”
One of Cohen’s players is 22-year-old yeshivah
student Aviad Ohayon, who said he tried football
for the fi rst time in high school in Kfar Saba,
at the behest of a friend. He didn’t know what
football was at the time.

“The information that I had about football
was like a bunch of guys with helmets fi ghting
with a strange ball in the shape of an egg,” said
Ohayon, not inaccurately. “He really wanted me
to come, so I was like, OK, why not? I came to
one practice, and you can say I fell in love with
the sport.”
Playing running back, linebacker and kicker,
Ohayon noted that he has played basketball,
soccer and karate in the past, but football was
special. “I really loved sports, but something with
football, the training and all the practices,
was very diff erent to me,” he said. “The spirit,
the brotherhood — everything was way more
unique than I saw in the other sports.”
Leibowitz, now 71 years old, calls himself the
“grandfather” of the sport in Israel.

“The craziness was sticking with it all these
years, for over 30 years, and making it into a life
ambition to establish the sport in Israel, because
I think it’s a good sport. I think it has a place in
this country,” he stated. “I think we’ve proven
that. And together with that we’ve created a
community. So at this point, I can’t even leave if
I wanted to.” ■
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