David Wiseman | JNS
As the days get shorter and the weather gets cooler, there’s a scent in the air that means a new football season is just around the corner. Not football with a soccer ball that you kick, but a pigskin that you throw. Walk by an American football scrimmage in Israel, and you will hear a hybrid of coaching and reacting in English-Hebrew, where some players wear tzitzit and kippahs and others are bedecked in tattoos.
What began as a labor of love for expat Americans who missed their beloved sport has grown considerably; it’s found its feet in the Holy Land.
Long gone are the days when locals had no idea what to make of this sport that resembles a mosh pit, with a colliding mass of bodies, helmets and padding. American football in Israel is growing, with eight men’s teams and 13 high school teams.
“It’s an exciting time for American football in Israel,” says Nimrod Pintel, commissioner of the Israel Football League (also known as the Kraft Family Israel Football League). “We have four new high school teams this season, which is sure to bring a new flavor.”
Those teams are Ra’anana, Kfar Saba, Be’er Sheva and Tel Aviv, and they are joining Ramat HaSharon, Jerusalem, Mazkeret Batya, Haifa, Kiryat Ono, Kadoorie, Beit Shemesh, Modi’in and Emek Hefer.
That means tackle football — full body contact, not just with the feet in the form of the ever-popular soccer. As the world becomes smaller and one-time regional sports become global, the youth of today are attracted to sports they’re exposed to. And American football is one of the biggest sporting brands in the world.
‘I liked the aggression’
Adi Badash, 33, co-founder and CEO of the Kiryat Ono Wolves, is also the coach of their high school team, the reigning Israeli champion.
When Badash was a teen, he had never even seen American football until a friend invited him to a practice. That single night changed his life.
“I didn’t know the sport at all,” he acknowledges. “But I liked it immediately. I liked the aggression.”
The Wolves took the national high school crown in 2010. Winning was great, but the lessons meant more to Badash. “I was going through a rough time,” he reveals. “I doubted myself constantly. Football gave me perseverance. It built my character. It gave me tools to keep going.”
He followed this up by being a member of the Tel Aviv Sabres team that won the men’s title.
Determined to pay it forward and give others the same gift, Badash brought the Wolves back from extinction in 2015.
“This is my purpose,” he says. “Everyone has greatness inside. They just need that one person to believe in them. I want to be that person. I want kids to come thinking they’re looking to play a game, and then they leave with a purpose.”
And forget the stereotype — this isn’t just an American expat league. At least 90% of his roster is Israeli-born.
Success didn’t come overnight. The Wolves lost championship games before finally breaking through. “Failure only lasts if you quit,” says Badash. “We refused to quit. And when we finally won, it tasted that much sweeter.”
War games
The growth at the high school level is also reflected in the men’s league, but just like everything else since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, it has been impacted by the war since many of the players are in their 20s and soldiers on active duty.
At that age, in peak physical condition, a significant percentage serve in elite combat units. As the war approaches the end of its second year — the longest war in the country’s history — weary soldiers who have been in active duty since Oct. 7 yearn for the normalcy that the game offers.
“Our sport has one of the highest percentages of active-duty players,” Pintel says. “One of our guys in Gaza told me, ‘I need to get back on the field.’”
The men’s teams stretch all over the country from Tel Aviv to Beersheva, and from Jerusalem to Hof HaCarmel. Pads and helmets are packed away when duty calls, but the hunger to play never leaves.
Hammer time
If one team embodies that drive, it’s the Ramat HaSharon Hammers. With two championships in the past three years, they are the current powerhouse of Israeli tackle football. Behind it all is general manager Ehud Koren.
Koren’s approach is pure professionalism. Think the Kansas City Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles found their way to central Israel. Koren bleeds teal and black (the Hammer colors) and says he would do anything to keep his beloved team where they are.
“We built a proper facility — the best in the country after Kraft,” he says. But it’s not just about the field. “A football team needs structure, logistics, equipment, coaches. Our players may be amateurs, but our management has to be professional.”
For the Hammers, dominance comes with pressure. “If another team is doing any aspect of their operations better than us, it means we’re not working hard enough. We have to keep raising the bar higher,” Koren stresses.
‘Take every aspect seriously’
Under Pintel’s leadership, the league aims to be more proactive in terms of branding itself and putting itself out there. “The games are going to be streamed live on YouTube, and there’s going to be a new podcast revolving around the league.”
He and others speak of the incredible amount of enthusiasm and love for the league, with players past and present eager to give back to the sport that has provided so much physical and mental satisfaction. Sports are a way to focus not just on the body but the mind; they can be a healthy escape from — at least, right now in Israel — more existential situations.
Pintel adds that new teams come about because players who retire and want to stay involved with the game find a team to manage or coach. It’s a way to stay involved with something they’ve put their hearts and heft into over the years.
Jerusalem is still the spiritual center in the shape of the Kraft Family Sports Campus, but the league is looking to build a second venue in Kfar Galim, near Haifa, and then more down south.
Another one of Pintel’s initiatives is to make the game in Israel semi-professional, saying that “if we want to be taken seriously, then we have to take every aspect of our operations seriously. And this is what we’re going to do.”
It’s all far removed from the days when equipment was secondhand, uniforms were hand-me-downs, the fields weren’t manicured, and cones served as posts.
But he looks forward to the next big jump. If the game continues on its current trajectory, many more in the West will become aware of the sport’s presence in the Middle East. And who knows, one day there just might be some Hebrew spoken in the NFL?
