ISRAELI BASKETBALL ‘STAR’ TO VISIT KC — Former Kansas City resident Avinoam Sachs was one of 12 players selected to compete on the Elitzur Israel basketball team that spent the first half of July playing exhibition games in the United States and Canada.
Sachs, who stands 6 feet 5 inches tall, lived in Overland Park with his family from 2008 through 2014 and played his first organized basketball at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. Three of his grandparents, Bob Strom and Barbara Phipps of Leawood and SueAnn Strom of Prairie Village, reside in the Kansas City area and Sachs will visit them once the Elitzur Israel schedule concludes before returning home to Israel.
The Elitzur Israel team is comprised of 15- and 16-year-olds who play for teams under the umbrella of the Elitzur religious sports movement in Israel, which comprises dozens of teams in various sports. Each Elitzur club was invited to send its best players in that age range to compete for a spot on the Elitzur Israel squad. More than 50 boys turned out for the initial stages and after several rounds of tryouts, Sachs made the final cut.
During the season, Sachs and his Elitzur Israel teammate Amitai Spiegelman led their Elitzur Hashmonaim club to a 21-5 record and a third-place finish in the ninth- and 10th-grade division of the Jerusalem regional league. The duo also captured the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council high school championship with their school, Ner Tamid.
The Elitzur Israel program is in its fourth year and designed to further develop the chosen players’ basketball progress and their leadership skills. During their time in North America, the players also planned to visit Jewish camps in New York, Pennsylvania and Ontario to conduct basketball clinics for youth and to lead activities for campers about life in Israel.
HBO TO PREMIERE SERIES ABOUT EVENTS LEADING TO 2014 GAZA WAR (JTA) — “Our Boys,” a 10-part series about the events that led to the 2014 Gaza War, will be screened on HBO in August.
The series was filmed in Israel and is a co-production of HBO and the Israeli production company Keshet International. It was directed by Joseph Cedar and created by Hagai Levi.
The series picks up after the kidnapping on June 12, 2014, of three Jewish teenagers, Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel, by members of the Hamas terrorist group. They were found dead in a shallow grave near Hebron at the end of that month.
The series follows the investigation of the murder of Palestinian teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir, an apparent revenge attack, and tells the story of all those involved, both Jews and Arabs.
The Gaza War, which Israel called Operation Protective Edge, was launched by Israel on July 8, in part to halt the barrage of rockets fired from Gaza on Israel.
It is the first HBO series to be filmed in Hebrew and Arabic, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The premiere on HBO is scheduled for Aug. 12, with two one-hour episodes, and then single episodes for the next eight Mondays. The show will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, HBO On Demand.