Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv visited the Makif ORT School in Ma’alot today as part of the community service project of the Israeli Basketball League Administration. Maccabi defeated the school’s basketball team 54 – 42 in a friendly game.
By Amy Samin
Taking advantage of their position as the team with a bye this week in the Israeli League, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv used their free time to do some community service work, playing a friendly game against Hapoel Ma’alot-Tarshihah before a crowd of hundreds of students in the gym at the ORT School.
Also present were Uzi Dayan, chairman of Mifal Hapayis, who suited up for Maccabi, the mayor of Ma’alot Shlomo Bohbot who played for Hapoel Ma’alot-Tarshihah, Maccabi’s chairman Shimon Mizrahi, and Avner Koppel of the League Administration, who made a speech to the students. Maccabi won the twenty-minute game (two halves of ten minutes each) by a score of 54 – 42; even having Shawn James and Guy Pnini on their team for the second half didn’t help the students get the win.
Yogev Ohayon, who grew up in nearby Kiryat Shmona, spoke about the visit and about giving back to the community: “It’s fun to come to the north, the air is good here. We’re happy we came and we’re happy to help the community. It really helped us that Shawn and Guy played for Ma’alot-Tarshihah; it was all a trick on our part. We thought they would help us more, but the guys on that team played good defense. It was a tough game, and it’s good that we were able to win. We were surprised by the enthusiasm here in Ma’alot, but on the other hand Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv is the nation’s team. Contributing to the community is very important to us. We’re people who need to do more than just put the ball in the basket.”
Team captain Tal Burstein added, “We just finished a long trip, we only just landed in Israel yesterday evening, but I love these activities on behalf of the community. It’s really nice to see that we have fans throughout the country. We haven’t started talking about [the Euroleague game on Thursday against] Charleroi yet. We need to keep working; obviously it’s really important to us to win at home.”
