{"id":503281,"date":"2019-02-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/follow-the-voice\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T10:38:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:38:54","slug":"follow-the-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/follow-the-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"responsive-video-container\" style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; margin-bottom: 20px;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/awBPkIXxQJI\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div style=\"direction: ltr;\">\n<div> \t\t<span style=\"font-size:14px;\">Thursday at the arena. The time flies by and all of a sudden there&#8217;s a feeling that&#8217;s it is getting closer. Is it stress, fear or excitement? Depends who you ask. You come inside and the red metal seats are about to roar once more, but they are silent, for now, waiting for the rest of the fans to come inside and sure enough they do one after another. All of a sudden it&rsquo;s a full house and almost out of nowhere it happens a deep voice is heard and you&#8217;re heart begins to race. &#8220;Good evening and welcome to the Sports Hall in Yad Eliyahu,&#8221; the voice greets. It is time, this is where it all begins, this is the voice.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">For 31 years, the thundering sounds coming of Rafi Ginat&#8217;s throat was the voice of the Maccabi arena. The voice of Maccabi, the voice of European basketball in Israel. A fearsome voice that have shaken up the foundations on which the mythical Maccabi arena was built, a voice that made all the rivals fear before the game has even begun, a voice that this week returns to where it belongs &ndash; the Maccabee Hall of Fame.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Rafi Ginat was born in Jerusalem 70 years ago, February 1949. He grew up in Kiryat Tivon and in his youth years he studied in Haifa. He started his career as a singer, but in 1974 he enrolled to a Sports reporter&#8217;s class after seeing the ad on the newspaper and this is how he made it to the Israeli TV. At that time he had also took his first steps as an announcer at the Maccabi Tel Aviv games.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Over the years Rafi Ginat has released song albums, hosted investigative shows such as &#8220;Beshidur Khoker&#8221; and &#8220;Callbotek&#8221;, was the editor of &#8220;HaOlam Haze&#8221; a weekly magazine, and also the editor in-chief of &#8220;Yedioth Ahronot&#8221;. During those years he was also the announcer of the Maccabi games and soon enough he became an integral part of the fearsome essence of the Maccabi arena or as it known today the Menora Mivtachim arena.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> \t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Towards the 2004 final four that was held in Tel Aviv, the EuroLeague requested that the game announcer will not be affiliated with any of the participating teams. Everyone around Europe knew exactly how powerful was Rafi&#8217;s voice and how immense was its influence, which is why it was decided that the announcer of the semifinals and finals will be Shay Sidi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">In 2005, when he was appointed as &#8220;Yedioth Ahronot&#8221; editor in-chief, Rafi stepped down from his position as the Maccabi game announcer. During his 31 years in the mythical Maccabi arena, his voice led some of Europe&#8217;s finest players into one of the most fearsome arenas in the old continent, including some of Maccabi&#8217;s all-time greats.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Tal Brody, Aulcie Perry, Jim Boatwright, Lou Silver, Miki Berkovich, Moti Aroesti, Doron Jamchy, LaVon Mercer, Guy Goodes, Nadav Henefeld, Oded Katash, Doron Sheffer, Saras Jasikevicious. Anthony Parker, Nikola Vujcic, Maceo Baston, Tal Burstein, Gur Shelf and also Derrick Sharp. He announced them all, and he made the opponents tremble with all.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Now, just before his 70th birthday, Rafi Ginat is inducted to the Maccabee hall of fame &ndash; The Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball club hall of fame. Not many from those who announced basketball games throughout the world have made it to the hall of fame. The most famous of the few who made to the hall of fame was &#8220;Chick&#8221; Hearn, the legendary Los Angeles Lakers announcer who was inducted to The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> \t\t<span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Although used to sitting outside the court, Rafi Ginat will now receive the highest of honors reserved to the Maccabi all-time greats at the Maccabee hall of fame. The festive ceremony is set to take place at the Menora Mivtachim arena just before the EuroLeague game against Olympiacos and the fans are requested to arrive early. This is a magical moment that a true Maccabist can simply not miss. Rafi Thank you for it all, for your voice and for helping us stand tall.<\/span><\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rafi Ginat Maccabi Hall of Fame induction ceremony<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-503281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-54"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503285,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503281\/revisions\/503285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503281"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=503281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}