ANDREW TOBIN
“It’s like a disease among women here,” said Naor Galili, the director-general of the Maccabi sports association in Israel. “We like it. We love it. We fully support it.”
Now the Israel Catchball Association is trying to spread the feminist fever to women around the world. A major step will be catchball’s appearance for the first time at the Maccabi Games in Israel this summer. The hope is that the thousands of Jews who attend the multi-sport games from around the world will be inspired to ask: What is catchball?
Well, catchball is like volleyball, but easier because catching and throwing replaces bumping, setting and spiking. Israelis adapted the sport from Newcomb ball, which was named for the Louisiana women’s college where it was invented over a century ago. Today, Americans rarely play Newcomb ball outside of gym class.
Meanwhile, catchball leagues in Israel boast more than 12 000 female members. That is twice as many adult women as belong to basketball, soccer, volleyball and tennis leagues combined, according to data from Israel’s Culture and Sport Ministry.
Hila Yeshayahu, 41, plays for the Herzliya-based squad Good Heart and handles marketing and business development for the Catchball Association, to which the team belongs. She said women start playing catchball because it is fun and easy – and stick with it for the sense of community and personal empowerment.
“Catchball is a present women give themselves. It’s a chance to do something healthy with other women and come back home with more strength and more passion,” she said. “When I step out the door in my uniform, my kids aren’t on my shoulder; my husband isn’t on my shoulder. I’m 18 years old again. I’m Hila, and I can do anything.”
Yeshayahu’s twin sister also competes for a team in the association, and their 11-year-old daughters play together in a new girls’ league.
On a Tuesday evening, Yeshayahu and her team faced off against AS Moment at a high school gym in Ramat Hasharon, not far from Herzliya in central Israel. The crowd consisted of a few husbands and sons on the sideline. But the atmosphere was competitive, with a referee, scorekeepers and players wearing numbered uniforms.
When AS Moment won two sets to none, Good Heart players slumped onto the court, and several tearfully threw their knee pads toward the bench. (The first two sets are scored up to 25 points, while a third set in the best-of-3 match would go to 15. The victor must win a set by at least two points.)
Good Heart coach Liron Shachnai, 34, a marketing and sales manager by day, said most of her players have little experience losing. Competitive sports in Israel are male-dominated, she said, so women do not have the opportunity to learn sportsmanship growing up.
“You have women who are over 40 going home crying, saying [the opposing players] think they’re better than us,” she said.
Still, by the next practice on Thursday evening, the players were looking toward the future. It helped that at this weekend they would compete in the Catchball Games in the southern resort town of Eilat. The tournament is catchball’s biggest event and a highlight of the year for many players.
In its sixth year, the Catchball Games are expected to draw more than 1 500 women from all of Israel’s leagues, and even a few teams from abroad. The women will don pink Israel Catchball Association T-shirts for four days of competition and socialising.
Local schools will host hundreds of matches, and the top two teams will face off for the championship. Off-court festivities will include a parade, Eilat’s first night road race and a standup comedy show.
Alexandra Kalev, a sociology professor at Tel Aviv University, says the success of catchball in Israel can be seen as a challenge to the roles women have traditionally played in the country’s sport and culture. Women’s sports in Israel are underfunded and little covered in the media, and women are expected to work and handle most household responsibilities.
“Catchball can empower women, especially at a stage in life when they are weakened,” Kalev said.” (JTA)
