Jews and Arabs Partner for Football 4 Peace
School’s out here in Israel, and today some 60 sports coaches arrived in Netanya from the UK and Germany to prepare for a most remarkable summer camp. They are partnering with 100 local coaches to help 1,500 youngsters with their soccer skills. The youngsters — Jews and Arabs, boys and girls — will train and play together for most of next week, building up to a final tournament.
Some 40 communities and regional councils will participate in the camp. Jewish and Arab communities are partnered and the participants are divided into small mixed groups. Part of the time is spent in a Jewish community and part in an Arab one, all participants meet at the final festival, next Thursday. Teams will be judged on fair play, not just results.
The program is called Football 4 Peace, and the message inculcated in all participants is that just as they can play together, they can live together. But it goes deeper than that. It’s also about Jews and Arabs on teams together learning that between them anything is possible. “Players that trust one another play well together,” says Football 4 Peace’s [statement of values.][1] “Learning to have faith in the capacities of others to carry out their roles and responsibilities dutifully and mutually, in ways that also contribute to the well being of team-mates, is an essential ingredient of good sportsmanship.”
The program has prestigious backers: Britain’s international cultural agency the British Council, the Israel Sports Authority, Brighton University’s Chelsea School of Sport (UK) and the Sports University in Cologne (Germany), and the European Union.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!