Gilad Shalit, Basketball Fan
Image by Getty Images
Going to a basketball game isn’t headline-making news — unless you’re Gilad Shalit, and the game is one of your first public outings after more than five years in Hamas captivity.
Israel’s most famous ex-prisoner returned to the local news in a big way last night after arriving in person to watch his favorite pro basketball team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, take on FC Barcelona Regal. Israelis have closely followed Shalit’s progress since he was released in an October prisoner swap, with the 25-year-old at one point causing controversy simply by going to the beach.
A serious sports fan, Shalit now has a special relationship with Maccabi: While he was trapped in Gaza, the team allowed the soldier’s family to use games to draw attention to his plight. The team invited him to a game soon after his return to Israel, but the famous fan decided to wait until yesterday to attend.
Arriving with friends from Mitzpeh Hilla, the moshav where he lives with his family, Shalit did his part to keep a low profile — but became the source of unwanted attention after photographers scuffled while attempting to take his picture.
Maccabi lost 71-55, but the squad’s coach, David Blatt, said he “was happy Shalit was here,” and promised that “in the future, we will win for him.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
