TEL AVIV, Israel — The Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team may not have won this year's Eurocup, but the team and its fans had plenty to celebrate Friday night after besting Montepasci Siena, 92-85, to win Game 1 of the Euroleague Final Four in Madrid. Some 1,000 fans, students and members of the local Jewish community decided to toast the surprise victory by attending a Shabbat dinner sponsored by Rabbi Yaakov Gloiberman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Lod, Israel, and the European Centre for Jewish Students.
Fans of Israeli Basketball Team Spend Shabbat in Madrid
TEL AVIV, Israel — The Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team may not have won this year’s Eurocup, but the team and its fans had plenty to celebrate Friday night after besting Montepasci Siena, 92-85, to win Game 1 of the Euroleague Final Four in Madrid. Some 1,000 fans, students and members of the local Jewish community decided to toast the surprise victory by attending a Shabbat dinner sponsored by Rabbi Yaakov Gloiberman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Lod, Israel, and the European Centre for Jewish Students.
During the game, which ended just one hour before Shabbat, volunteers waited outside the city’s Sports Palace to greet the yellow-and-blue clad fans who had flown from Israel and other places around the globe. When they found out what was going on, hundreds of fans who held tickets to the following game between Tau Ceramica and CSKA Moscow chose instead to ride one of a dozen buses to the dinner.
“They were shouting, ‘G-d was with us for this game. And after a game like this, we’re running to make Kiddush,’ ” related Nira Shocket, program coordinator for the ECJS.
Organizers, who had spent weeks planning the event, chose a venue that was close enough to the stadium that people would not travel on Shabbat. Still, the schedule was a tight fit.
