Maccabi Ra’anana coach wants to complete NBA preseason tour to inspire kids back in Israel

A lot has been said about Maccabi Ra’anana’s preseason tour against three NBA teams this October, as many believe the games shouldn’t be played while Israel in waging war against Hamas this week. However, yesterday they finally played the trip’s first match against the Nets and coach Yehu Orland says he wants to complete the tour to inspire israeli kids back home. 

Before this Thursday’s match in Brooklyn, the foreign trainer admitted that he was “sitting here, trying not to cry, because my heart is broken,” while wearing a wearing a polo shirt that read “R.I.P. ELI FOREVER IN MY HEART”.

“I lost one of my best friends two days ago in the war,” Orland said about the casualties of the war that began last Saturday. “For me, it’s a personal tragedy. But for our country, it’s everybody’s tragedy.” The coach remembered his late friend Eli Ginsberg, who had served the military for 23 years and recently had retired, but was called up again and lost his life.

“For sure I’m sad and my world is down,” Orland admitted, but added that he wants to keep “my head up to create hope for those children, for those teenagers, for those young people that they need hope” back home.

The Ra’anana trainer admitted after the Nets’ 135-103 victory to have “cried a little bit” during Israel’s national anthem, sang by Noa Kirel.

“But that’s OK with me. I”m going to be OK,” Orland said he was happy to see so many smiles around him. “The Israeli guys especially. I’m not sure if it was a smile of happiness — maybe it was a smile of not focused on the situation in Israel and do what they like to do.”

Ra’anana forward Jonathan Mor shared that both his brothers are at the war’s front lines and is hard not to think about them constantly. “I’m not gonna lie: Basketball was secondary in the last week or so,” he said. “But I can tell [you] that I haven’t seen the guys on the team smile prior to today in the last five days. I did see smiles today.”

Nets coach Jacque Vaughn also appreciated the opportunity of being able to share this contest with the Israeli team and learn more about the conflict

Brooklyn coach Jacque Vaughn said Thursday that the team had “talked about just being able to have compassion, to try to educate yourself on what’s going on.” He later added that “we talked about how grateful we are that we do get an opportunity to play tonight.”

Maccabi Ra’anana has been in the United States for over a week now, and its lead sponsor Jeff Rosen shared the reasons why they intend to complete the three-match NBA tour, which still have two more games against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves next week.

@Noakirel singing Hatikvah at the basketball game between the @BrooklynNets and the Israeli team @Maccabi_raanana.

The friendly match was arranged by the Consulate with the @BrooklynNets. The stadium was full as people gathered together in an incredible outpouring of support. pic.twitter.com/Hg4QMwva5W

— Israel in New York (@IsraelinNewYork) October 13, 2023

“I think the shock of the war impacted [us] in unpredictable ways,” Rosen explained. “I think everyone had personal challenges almost immediately, and yet we caucused as a group, as management and with the players. And I think we reached the conclusion pretty quickly that we felt it was in [our] best interest to continue the trip.”

Rosen finally added that Ra’anana is “proud to be here with our friends and allies and participating in friendship and peaceful activities like sports, under the sad backdrop of such a ferocious and horrible war.”