By Noa Singer
My body hits the gym floor. Contact had come in from the side, blindly catching me off balance. The basketball foul wasn’t malicious, but it was egregious, and much harder than it needed to be. The fire began to rise within me, and I could already hear my voice forming words meant for the player who pushed me.
But then I looked around — at the players on the other team, at their parents in the stands and at the big Israeli flag that hangs on the wall of our gym — and realized that whatever I did next would be seen as more than an individual act. Sports games are secular and competitive spaces, yet our identity doesn’t disappear there. Interpretation is happening whether we invite it or not, as our team represents the entire Jewish community.
Throughout my six years as a three-sport athlete at Barrack Hebrew Academy, moments like this have repeated themselves in different gyms and fields, against different teams, and in different leagues. Previously in the Penn-Jersey League and now in the Friends School League, as well as throughout many non-league games, we have played a wide variety of schools, including other independent private schools, Catholic schools, public city schools, vocational schools and boarding schools. Barrack’s sports teams serve as some of these students’ first direct exposure to Jewish people, a reality that adds meaning to moments that otherwise feel ordinary.
This responsibility is not something that is deliberately or consistently pointed out (in fact, many of our coaches aren’t Jewish). It’s just something that is silently understood by the players.
When you step into our gym, you will find our school’s “derech eretz values” lining the walls in Hebrew and English: Honor (Kavod), Courage (Ometz Lev), Kindness (Chesed) and Community (Kehillah). We carry these values into every huddle and use them to build a collaborative and supportive team culture. I vividly remember sitting in the stands in seventh grade, watching my sisters play in the varsity league championship basketball game, feeling these values come alive as the students around me chanted “Ometz Lev” while the team made a 20-point comeback in the third quarter.
Sports are a volatile, yet powerful space. Emotions run high, physicality emerges and tough competition threatens to bring out the worst in people. But that is also exactly what makes them so powerful: the opportunity to create an incredible environment of effort, teamwork and sportsmanship. Sometimes, we don’t get it right. There were definitely moments I wish we had handled differently, because the lens only zooms in when our behavior slips. At times, we emerged from a game knowing we didn’t represent ourselves optimally, but most of the time, we step off the court or field with great pride, knowing we represented the highest values of the Jewish people through our consistent good sportsmanship and behavior alongside our athletic success.
How many opportunities are granted to Jewish teenagers to show themselves as a group to the outside world? How many chances are we given to be the one touchpoint to teens who have never before encountered a Jew? Barrack sports provide a rare public stage where we as Jewish teens are repeatedly on display, our every move and behavior a visible embodiment of our people to the outside world.
I remember a lacrosse game against an urban public high school, where I struck up a conversation with a player from the opposing team before the opening whistle. She mentioned she had never met a Jewish person before, and her surprise that we actually played sports. We then spent a few minutes discussing our lives. It was a simple conversation, but it stayed with me as a reminder that even small interactions can shape someone’s understanding of our people.
As Jewish athletes playing for a Jewish school, tiny gestures such as friendly jokes with opponents while waiting for the whistle to blow, helping someone up when they fall and respectful conduct toward referees often carry more weight than athletic skill. Our behavior in moments of victory and how we react in the unfair moments leaves a lasting impression on our opponents. Sometimes, this feels heavy. Sometimes, I just want to play without the constant awareness that I am always representing more than myself. But overall, I am so profoundly grateful to have been given such a special opportunity.
And our identity has been acknowledged by the schools against whom we play, highlighting that our internal feeling of representing the Jewish people is, in fact, mirrored externally.
On Oct. 10, 2023, at an away soccer game, the opposing team initiated a moment of silence in memory of the lives of our people who were lost. I remember vividly how impactful this gesture was, coming from a non-Jewish school at a time when we felt so overwhelmed with vulnerability. Or the multiple times that nearby Christian schools have asked us to join their prayer circle after a game, where instead of emphasizing difference, the focus was on standing together in a moment of reflection that had nothing to do with winning or losing. In these moments, we were shown how religion seeps into athletics in positive ways. Conversely, we have unfortunately also encountered negative, antisemitic comments on the court or field, but in those instances, we are given the rare opportunity to react through good sportsmanship and an impressive athletic performance, showing those who misunderstand us who we really are.
The athletic stage provides us with visibility few other spaces allow, and I take pride in knowing that even on a small scale, our actions ripple outward, beyond ourselves. Jewish representation through athletics is both a privilege and a responsibility I carry with gratitude.
Noa Singer is a senior at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, where she is captain of the soccer, basketball and lacrosse teams.