A trip organized by Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple brought a group of 15 Israeli basketball player and their three coaches to Los Angeles. The team, Eshkol, hadn’t seen each other since Oct. 7, 2023, when their kibbutzim were attacked and they were forced to flee to the north. Three of their coaches murdered. While in L.A., the played against local schools and caught a Lakers and a Clippers game. “It was an intense healing journey,” Sherman told The Journal, adding that it “inspired our community to do even more.”
They played games against teams from Shalhevet High School and Milken Community School. On Dec. 2, they attended the Laker game against Minnesota Timberwolves; the next day, they saw Clippersplay the Portland Trail Blazers.
“I was able to contact Jeanie Buss and she was very kind and gave us amazing tickets,” Sherman said. “At the Clippers games, the Israeli team’s manager Omer Bilanski was honored as Hero of the Night.”
Sherman was also honored at the game.
The team was thrilled to meet Israeli player Deni Avdija, the Trail Blazers’ small forward, after the game. They also met two-time Olympian Angel McCoughtry, who played for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
“She made a great speech where she told them “Your circumstances don’t define you,” he said. “It was really great.”
One player told CBS News that a coach— a good friend of his father’s — was murdered and that he knows a lot of people who were kidnapped or killed. The trip allowed the team to think something other than “the terrible things that happened.” Coach Ran Gold told CBS the trip was helpful.
The group visited UCLA, UCLA Hillel, and Universal Studios as well. “They were treated like royalty,” he said. When the team went out to a store, he said, a Jewish woman, when she heard who they were, paid for a shopping spree. He said parents in the Sinai Temple community bonded with the team’s Israeli parents.
Sherman said it is a true test of people so see how they react when their lives are interrupted and upended by adversity or tragedy. He said one mother messaged him that as a nurse at Soroka Medical Center, “I had to decide if I should be a mother or a nurse and save lives,” she told him. “I decided to be a nurse and see my family on weekends.” The trip, she said, changed her son’s life.
“It’s not easy to process trauma at any age. I think it’s important for them to see they’re not alone. We care about them. The Los Angeles community cares about them. We want to get them back to playing basketball.” – Rabbi Erez Sherman
“It’s not easy to process trauma at any age,” Sherman said. “I think it’s important for them to see they’re not alone. We care about them. The Los Angeles community cares about them. We want to get them back to playing basketball.
“People are looking to see ways they can help,” Sherman said. “Project 24 asks what your superpower is and mine is basketball, so we went from there.” The next step, he said, is to raise money for the team’s uniforms.
