Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

New York Boy’s Hoops Mitzvah

A new basketball court built as part of a bar mitzvah project by a New York boy was dedicated in Beersheba.

The court was dedicated Sunday in the “Yud Alef” neighborhood of Beersheba, a neighborhood that is mainly home to immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union. As part of the opening of the court, a friendly basketball game was held between neighborhood children and visiting children from New York.

Daniel Klosk of New York City donated all of his bar-mitzvah gifts toward the basketball project for kids his age in Israel, combining his love of basketball and Israel. In addition to the court, advanced basketball lessons will be given by a seasoned basketball coach twice a week to the neighborhood kids, for free, and new basketball team uniforms have already been purchased.

“I thought it’s important to give the kids in the neighborhood not only a new basketball court, but also the opportunity to enjoy the experience of learning and playing competitively on a real basketball team, with a real basketball coach, and to give them the same kind of opportunity that was given to me,” said Klosk. “I hope that this basketball training will give the kids the inspiration, ability, and motivation, to successfully overcome their daily challenges.”

Klosk plays on the New Renaissance Team of New York, a nationally ranked Division One team of the American Athletic Union

The project was undertaken as part of the “Give a Mitzvah–Do a Mitzvah” program of the UJA-Federation of New York.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.