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‘Hebrew in the huddle’: American football kicks off another season in Israel
(JTA) — The year was 1999, and Jonathan Hauser was working as a concierge at the famous King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
At the time, Hauser was playing for the Jerusalem Lions flag football team, a part of the American Football in Israel organization. The league was 10 years old at the time but lacked adequate playing fields. One day, he spotted a face he knew from TV in the hotel lobby: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Hauser told Kraft about American Football in Israel (AFI) — which Kraft, despite being a regular Israel visitor, did not know existed — and connected him with Steve Leibowitz, a veteran journalist who moved to Israel in 1974 and had been leading the development of the sport in Israel.
Just a year later, Kraft inaugurated the small Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem, with a field only 80 yards long (instead of the regulation 100-yard length in the NFL). The AFI — which started with touch football and later expanded to flag football and adult tackle football — had found a field.
On Saturday night, the AFI kicks off its season in Bet Shemesh with a matchup between the Bet Shemesh Rebels and the Jerusalem Lions, in front of a sold-out crowd of 400. Around 2,000 players, coaches and referees are now involved in the league throughout the country. The adult tackle league features eight teams from different cities who compete in an eight-game regular season, followed by playoffs that culminate in the Israel Bowl championship game in the spring. Other programs for men, women and children of all ages are offered in cities across Israel.
“The dream of building football in the country is due to the partnership and friendship and help of Robert Kraft, without any question, and his family,” said Leibowitz, a New York City native and longtime Giants fan.
Leibowitz had the dream since the 1980s, when he and a group of journalists put together a sports club to watch American football by pirating the signal from the Armed Forces Network. That inspired them to start the league.
In 2017, Kraft donated $6 million to open the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem, which Leibowitz said is home to the only regulation-size American football field in the Middle East, plus facilities for soccer, basketball and more.
“My late, darling wife Myra always used to tell me that until I start building football in Israel, I would not win anything with [the] Patriots,” Kraft said at the 2017 dedication. “That happened in late 1999, and we won our first Super Bowl in 2001. Now we have five championships, and I can’t ignore the connection between our continuing to support development in Israel and our great accomplishments.”
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft at the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem. (Courtesy American Football in Israel)
Players from AFI have gone on to play college ball in the United States, most notably Yonatan Marmour, who in 2021 became the first Israeli to play Division I football. Bet Shemesh coach Charlie Cohen, a yeshiva teacher and salesman who moved to Israel from Massachusetts in 2000, added that some athletes play in Israel during a gap year before trying to make the jump to Division II.
In the early years of football in Israel, Leibowitz said the players were mostly American immigrants or children of immigrants. But now, he says there is mostly “Hebrew in the huddle”: Nearly every team outside Jerusalem is entirely Hebrew-speaking. Some cities have Arab players, plus immigrants from Ethiopia and Russia.
Leibowitz is proud of one notable AFI alum: American-born Ron Dermer, Israel’s new minister of strategic affairs and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States. Leibowitz called Dermer, who played flag football, a “celebrity” in Israel’s football community.
Leibowitz, who serves as president of AFI, acknowledged that the sport will never surpass the popularity of soccer or basketball in Israel. But the strides the league has made are undeniable, and the AFI hopes to build three more football stadiums, with plans in motion for regulation-size fields in Haifa, outside Tel Aviv and in Beersheva.
In another sign of development on the world stage, Israel also hosted the 2019 European Flag Football Championship and the 2021 Flag Football World Championship. In July, Leibowitz said, the AFI has been invited to bring a national team of top players to play in Fez, Morocco. He said it’s the first time an Israeli team will play a Moroccan team in Morocco, likely in any sport.
And with the 2028 Olympics in the not-too-distant future, Leibowitz said the AFI is working on a squad that could qualify for the soon-to-be-announced flag football competition.
Leibowitz added that the league honors the late Myra Kraft, who was also very involved in the sport’s development, by stitching her initials onto the Israeli players’ jerseys when they play abroad.
For coach Charlie Cohen, football is at the center of his Jewish practice — and helped inspire him to become a rabbi.
“Without sports, there is no Jewish identity for me,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Cohen, 53, said he was kicked out of Hebrew school as a child and had all but walked away from his Judaism when he was coaching Pop Warner football in Sharon, Massachusetts. His winless team squared off against a powerhouse squad from nearby North Attleboro and won, 13-12.
“That was a really watershed moment for me,” Cohen said. “I took that to heart, as a person, and as a Jew.”
He explained: “Here it is, you’re a football coach, and you’re demanding that your team has character. Your team shows up for each other. If you have a loss, come fight for your guys, don’t quit… I said to myself, if I were to demand my little peewee football team turns it around, well, I’m going to turn it around, too.”
He reengaged with Judaism and ultimately immigrated to Israel, where he became a rabbi.
Cohen began as Bet Shemesh’s offensive line coach, then became head coach last season, leading the Rebels to the semifinals, where they lost by four points.
And no, Cohen is not over the loss: “We had the ball with two minutes to go. Should’ve called a timeout and calmed them down. You live and you learn.”
A Tel Aviv Pioneer player hurdles an opponent in an American Football in Israel game. (Doron Dotan)
One of Cohen’s players is 22-year-old yeshiva student Aviad Ohayon, who said he tried football for the first time in high school in Kfar Saba, at the behest of a friend. He didn’t know what football was at the time.
“The information that I had about football was like a bunch of guys with helmets fighting with a strange ball, in the shape of an egg,” Ohayon told JTA, not inaccurately. “He really wanted me to come, so I was like, okay, why not? I came to one practice and you can say I fell in love with the sport.”
Ohayon — who plays running back, linebacker and kicker — said he has played basketball, soccer and karate in the past, but football was special.
“I really loved sports, but something with football, the training and all the practices, was very different to me,” he said. “The spirit, the brotherhood, everything was way more unique than I saw in the other sports.”
Leibowitz, now 71, calls himself the “grandfather” of the sport in Israel.
“The craziness was sticking with it all these years, for over 30 years, and making it into a life ambition to establish the sport in Israel, because I think it’s a good sport. I think it has a place in this country,” he said. “I think we’ve proven that. And together with that we’ve created a community. So at this point, I can’t even leave if I wanted to.”
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The post ‘Hebrew in the huddle’: American football kicks off another season in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Downed Planes Raise New Perils for Trump as Tehran Hunts for Missing US Pilot
Traces of an Iranian missile attack in Tehran’s sky, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 3, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Two US warplanes were downed over Iran and the Gulf, Iranian and US officials said on Friday, with two pilots rescued and a third still missing and being hunted by Tehran’s forces.
The incidents show the risks still faced by US and Israeli aircraft over Iran despite assertions from US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that their forces had total control of the skies.
The first plane, a two-seat US F-15E jet, was shot down by Iranian fire, officials in both countries said.
The second plane, an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft, was hit by Iranian fire and crashed over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, two US officials said.
Two Blackhawk helicopters involved in the search effort for the missing pilot were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace, the two US officials told Reuters.
The degree of injuries among the crew of the aircraft remained unclear. The status and whereabouts of the missing F-15E crew member was not publicly known.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was combing an area near where the pilot’s plane came down in southwestern Iran and the regional governor promised a commendation for anyone who captured or killed “forces of the hostile enemy.”
Iranians, who have been pummeled by American air power for weeks, posted gleeful messages celebrating the plane downings. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that the U.S. and Israel’s war had been “downgraded from regime change” to a hunt for their pilots.
Trump has been in the White House receiving updates on the search-and-rescue operation, a senior administration official told Reuters. The Pentagon and US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NO SIGN OF END TO WAR
The prospect of a US service person being alive and on the run inside Iran raises the stakes for Washington in a conflict with low public support and no sign of an imminent end.
Iran has officially told mediators it is not prepared to meet with US officials in Islamabad in coming days and that efforts to produce a ceasefire, led by Pakistan, have reached a dead end, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The US and Israel opened the campaign with a wave of strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28. The war has killed thousands and threatened lasting damage to the global economy.
So far, 13 US military service members have been killed in the conflict and more than 300 have been wounded, according to the US Central Command.
Iran has rained down drones and missiles on Israel. It has also taken aim at Gulf countries allied to the US, which have so far held back from joining the war directly for fear of further escalation.
In a security alert on Friday, the US embassy in Beirut said Iran and its aligned armed groups may target universities in Lebanon and urged US citizens in the country to leave while commercial flights are still available.
Israel has been waging a parallel campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after the militant group fired at Israel in support of Iran.
TRUMP THREAT TO STRIKE BRIDGES, POWER PLANTS
On Friday, as Trump threatened to hit its bridges and power plants, Iran struck a power and water plant in Kuwait, underlining the vulnerability of Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination plants for drinking water.
On Thursday, Trump posted footage on social media showing dust and smoke billowing up as US strikes hit the newly constructed B1 bridge between Tehran and nearby Karaj, which was due to open this year, and said more attacks would follow.
“Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” he wrote in a subsequent post.
On Friday, a drone hit a Red Crescent relief warehouse in the Choghadak area of Iran’s southern Bushehr province.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery had been hit by drones. Other attacks were also reported to have been intercepted in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Missile debris landed near the Israeli port of Haifa, site of a major oil refinery.
Oil markets were closed after benchmark U.S. crude prices gained 11% on Thursday following a speech by Trump that offered no clear sign of an imminent end to the war.
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US-Iran: Diplomatic Push Falters as Qatar Steps Back and Pakistan Talks Stall
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
i24 News – Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran appear to have reached an impasse, as key regional mediators pull back and broader talks stall.
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Qatar has informed US officials that it does not wish to take a central role in mediating between the two sides. Officials familiar with the matter said Doha has made clear it is “not willing” to lead negotiations or act as the primary broker.
At the same time, Pakistan-led efforts to bring Iranian and American officials together have also stalled. Mediators say Tehran has refused to attend proposed meetings in Islamabad, calling Washington’s conditions “unacceptable,” further underscoring the widening gap between the two sides and the growing difficulty of restarting dialogue.
Despite the deadlock, diplomatic channels have not fully closed. Turkey and Egypt are continuing parallel efforts to revive talks, with discussions underway about potential alternative venues, including Doha and Istanbul.
US President Donald Trump downplayed the impact of recent military developments on diplomacy, including the destruction of a US fighter jet during operations in Iran. Speaking in a brief exchange with an NBC News journalist, he said: “No, not at all. It’s war. We are at war.”
He further fueled speculation with a cryptic social media post on Truth Social, writing: “Keep the oil, anyone?” criticising international allies on Friday over rising fuel prices. Trump appeared to mock allies such as the United Kingdom, writing that they should “keep the oil.”
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Report: Iran Retains Significant Missile Capability Despite Weeks of US-Led Strikes
Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 31, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Despite weeks of sustained airstrikes by the United States and its allies, Iran has reportedly managed to retain a substantial portion of its military capabilities, particularly its ballistic missile arsenal.
According to a report by The New York Times citing US intelligence assessments, Tehran has developed methods to mitigate the impact of the strikes, allowing it to preserve and restore key parts of its missile infrastructure.
While the Pentagon has claimed responsibility for striking more than 11,000 targets over five weeks and reducing the rate of Iranian missile fire, intelligence officials now caution that the actual damage may be more limited than initially assessed. Iranian forces are reportedly able to rapidly repair or reactivate missile launchers stored in heavily fortified or underground facilities, sometimes within hours of being hit.
Analysts also point to the widespread use of decoy sites, which may have drawn strikes away from operational assets. Many of the targeted locations are believed to have contained dummy installations, complicating efforts to accurately gauge the degradation of Iran’s ballistic capabilities. Combined with deep underground bunkers and dispersed storage networks, this approach is seen as enabling Tehran to maintain a higher level of readiness than publicly estimated.
US intelligence officials assess that this resilience reflects a deliberate strategy: preserving a credible long-range strike capability as both a deterrent and a bargaining tool in any future negotiations, while ensuring regime survival and continued regional influence.
Despite sustained air dominance claimed by Washington and its allies, Iran’s adaptive tactics continue to complicate battlefield assessments, leaving the true balance of power in the conflict uncertain.