Jewish and Arab Youth Come Together for Soccer in Israel

Youth soccer is a way to bridge differences in Israel. Jews – from secular to ultra-Orthodox – and Arabs playing soccer together allows youth to meet other young people from diverse backgrounds and cultures and helps to form a more cohesive society. This became especially important for Israel after the October 7, 2023 attack.

Yaniv Kusevitzky, who works for The Equalizer Group, a nonprofit youth organization, told Israel21c that the group would not allow the war to stop Arab and Jewish kids from building a shared future. Just four months after the horrific attacks, soccer games were being played by Arab and Jewish teams in Jerusalem.

“We have teams from all backgrounds, and we create social cohesion,” Kusevitzky told Israel21c. “They meet for a tournament, they shake hands, they warm up together. They wear the same shirt with the same logo. They feel proud; they’re part of a family.”

In the Beginning
The Equalizer – which is named for the goal that levels the score –  isn’t just about soccer or  about winning games. It’s about building confidence and giving youth a sense of shared purpose, according to Gavriel Halevi, the deputy CEO of Education for The Equalizer.  He told Goodnet, “This vision is to use the power of sports to make a national impact on Israel society.”

The organization was founded by Liran Gerassi in 2009 when he was a volunteer teaching Hebrew to new immigrants from Ethiopia. Halevi told Goodnet that when Gerassi went to the new immigrant housing in a poor neighborhood of Jerusalem, he saw kids who were smoking and drinking and not learning Hebrew. He asked the kids what they were interested in, and they told him football (what soccer is known as in Israel).

So, Gerassi offered to coach the students in soccer and gave them two soccer practices and two educational sections where he helped the youth do homework every week.

A short time later, Gerassi received a phone call from the kids’ school and was told that his program was transforming the students who were learning and participating. The principal offered to bring the program into the school. This combination of sports and education became the model for The Equalizer.

A year later the grass roots program was up to 10 teams in Jerusalem and 25 teams in just three years. After that, the organization went national and there are now 10,000 participants in 500 schools across 126 municipalities (including the Gaza area communities and the North).

“The program is inclusive of every segment of society: secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, Arab, Druze – everyone. What unites them isn’t just football, but a set of shared values: equality, mutual respect, and social responsibility, Halevi said.

After October 7
On October 7, The Equalizer staff was really shaken up, just like the rest of the country. Many of the organization’s staff and participants are from Gaza-border towns and communities in the North. Thousands were displaced from their homes and went to centers and hotels.

On October 10 — just three days after the attack — the organization decided to go to the evacuation sites. They planned on holding one-off soccer practices at evacuation centers just to be able to do something positive.

This changed the moment Halevi went to a hotel in Jerusalem where people evacuated from Sderot (the closest city in Israel to Gaza were staying. He said that they saw all of Israeli society coming together to help one another but they didn’t see any kids. The children were all in their rooms and wouldn’t come out. He suggested that maybe they would come out to play soccer, and many did.

“One mother from Sderot was displaced to Eilat,” Kusevitzky told Israel21c. “She said her son didn’t want to leave the room; he was afraid after what happened. The first time he managed to go out was when The Equalizer came.

That’s when the organization realized that playing with their teams and coaches would give them a sense of normalcy and stability, Halevi told Goodnet. When the kids were able to return to their homes and communities (not all have) they were still connected to each other and to their communities.

In February 2024, the first war-time youth soccer tournament was held in Jerusalem even while rockets were still flying, according to Halevi. This included five teams from evacuated communities, six from West Jerusalem, and three from East Jerusalem. “And yet, the teams stood in a circle holding hands [while] doing a joint warm-up. It was like stepping onto an island of calm in the middle of the storm,” he said.

This Halevi stressed is what Israel needs, shared joy, shared values, and a shared future.

Histadrut Soccer Tournament
Jewish and Arab kids from across northern Israel recently participated in a tournament that was sponsored by the Histadrut’s Jewish-Arab Institute and the Central Galilee branch of the labor union, according to Davar (a Histadrut publication). Playing under the banner that read,“In This Tournament, We All Win,” the matches took place in Shefa-Amr, a mixed city, and focused on unity.

“Shefa-Amr is a symbol of shared living, and there’s nothing that brings people together like sports,” Shadi Kablan, director of the Jewish-Arab Institute told Davar. “Sports offer hope and light for a life together here — because we have no other country.”

The parents of the youth were there to cheer their kids, and they didn’t focus on who they were playing.

Saleh Abu Raid of Shefa-Amr came to support his 9-year-old son, Adiv, a long-time player on Maccabi Shefa-Amr’s youth team.

“It’s his hobby — he loves soccer,” Abu Raid said. “I work with both Jews and Arabs, and I’m happy he’s meeting Jewish kids. When you’re playing, it doesn’t matter if you’re Arab or Jewish.”

Batel Ambar’s nine-year-old son Elad scored several goals in the game. Ambar said that his youth team in Haifa has mixed membership. “It’s so important to expose kids to coexistence,” she said.