For many, pickleball is a new way to get outside and move around. It might be a fun way to hang out with family or friends, or to get the competitive juices flowing for those who don’t usually partake in competition. For others, it’s a weekly or even daily workout ritual.
And yet, for Avi Yehuda, it’s even more than that.
Yehuda is the head pickleball pro at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill, a title that may raise some eyebrows; however, Yehuda’s resume speaks for itself. He has won medals at the Philadelphia Open and New Jersey Open, as well as playing on a team that placed second at USTA nationals in tennis, which was his first love as a racquet sport.
For Yehuda, pickleball is much more than a game. It’s his job, and also a way to forge connections.
“I love teaching — for me to see people gain what I’m trying to show them, to hit the ball when they hit a clear shot, it’s amazing. They are so happy, and they get what I’m showing them. That’s amazing. That’s the best part of my day,” he said.
Yehuda is Israeli, and his athletic journey started in his home country. There, he was a semi-pro basketball player, getting paychecks as a teenager to hoop. At one point, the team could no longer afford to pay him to play, but also wanted to retain his knowledge and teaching ability, so they made him a coach. That spurred in Yehuda a love of not just playing sports but also teaching sports.
That has allowed him to continue to spread the magic of the game even as his own career wanes. He said he wants to get back into playing competitively, but that it gets harder as he ages. A few years ago, he suffered an injury that resulted in multiple surgeries, which made the road to recovery a long one. A lifetime of athletics wears on your body, which is the reason that Yehuda first started playing pickleball instead of tennis in the first place, way back in 2016, long before the game exploded.
“[Tennis] was too hard on my body. My friend across the street said, ‘You’re a good tennis player, you would love to play pickleball.’ I looked at him and said, ‘pickle-what?’” Yehuda said. “I got so frustrated in the beginning because I was a tennis player. Nobody taught me the game, so I was serving volley, I was in the kitchen all the time — they were all laughing at me for two weeks.”
True to his nature, though, Yehuda stuck with it and figured the game out.
“I was a mess for two weeks, and after that, my competitive nature started to kick in, and I started learning the game very well,” he said.
Soon, Yehuda fell in love with pickleball. He jumped on the growing trend, becoming one of the first in the Delaware Valley to teach and offer clinics. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and he is in charge of the program at the Katz JCC, which draws people to the courts every day. Yehuda doesn’t just have friends and foes on the court here — he has lifelong connections.
“Everybody here is my brother and sister, and not just [the] Jewish [ones],” he said.
He said that one of his best friends at the JCC is a non-Jew who won an award last week.
Yehuda was so moved by his commitment to the JCC and their recognition of that commitment that he gifted him the Star of David that he wears on his neck.
“They understand that we are a Jewish community, and as long as they respect that and support it, that’s good,” he said.
Yehuda loves playing pickleball at the JCC, and he loves playing it in Israel, too. He goes back to his homeland every year, and brings his wife and son with him every other year.
The family used to belong to Congregation Beth El in Voorhees Township, but the Cherry Hill residents let that membership lapse during COVID, and now attend Chabads for holidays or events. On Friday nights, you can find them in their own home, celebrating Shabbat together.
Yehuda hopes that he can continue to spread the joy of pickleball and the competition of sports for many years. He said looking around on a crowded day of play on the courts is a great joy for him.
“That’s what makes our community special — the social aspect of it,” he said.
