October 5, 2007
By Bruce VanBaren, Calvin Sports information student assistant

They speak different languages and sing different anthems, but the Calvin women’s soccer team and the Israeli ASA Tel-Aviv team were still able to communicate through the universal language of soccer as the teams squared off in an exhibition match at Zuidema Field on September 27.

Calvin came out on top thanks to two early goals by freshman Kellie Honderd (Hudsonville/Unity Christian).  Carly Prins (Hudsonville/ Unity Christian) and Elizabeth Ribbens each added a goal as well as the Knights took the “friendly” 4-1.

“It was very good experience because we are competing against a different level than we are used to in Israel,” Tel-Aviv coach David Bar Kalifa said.  “They are faster and they are stronger and it is a good experience for us, we are learning from it.”

ASA Tel-Aviv which has seven members on it from the Israeli National team, including Dayan Meital the national team’s captain who scored the lone Tel Aviv goal, was put together out of the University of Tel Aviv and is traveling throughout Michigan and Indiana to compete against MIAA conference teams. 

“You don’t know how [excited we were to come],” Bar Kalifa said with a smile.  “For us to come to the United States it’s like a bonus, not everyone can afford to come to the states.”

Sports in Israel aren’t as popular as in the United States according to Bar Kalifa.

“It’s hard to get sports in Israel and women’s sports especially,” he said.  “We have only twelve teams all over Israel.  Some of my players are national team players, but we don’t have the system like in the United States [with] high schools and colleges, we don’t have it.

The population of Israel is slightly less than that of Massachusetts.

“We [were] the runner up for the championship [in Israel]. I think that this team Calvin could win the championship in Israel easily,” Bar Kalifa said.

ASA Tel-Aviv was recently put together and hadn’t had much practice time together as the season in Israel doesn’t begin until December.

Alyssa Bergsma (Walker/ Calvin Christian) played goal keeper for ASA Tel-Aviv in the first half.

“It was an experience.  It was hard because I didn’t know what they were saying and I had to go in their huddle and they said, ‘we’ll translate for you later,’” Bergsma joked.

Both teams exchanged gifts prior to the game as well as shared a meal after the game.

“That was a lot of fun,” Bergsma said.  “It was kind of hard to communicate and to understand them, but they did their best.  It was really cool to hear their stories and to talk to them.”

Many of the Israeli athletes are students including nineteen year old Kyla Blumenfeld, a high school student who stars on the U-19 Israeli national team, and twenty six year old Danon Nitsan who is a student at Tel-Aviv University where the team was organized.

Some of the women have typical jobs.  Meital, who is twenty-eight, is a store manager and Maimoni Anat serves as a cafeteria manager.

But some women have much different stories.  Nineteen year olds Emily Barnes and Daniel Sofer and eighteen year old Keren Sharabi are soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force.

“That’s crazy,” Bergsma said when she heard that.

Military service is required for all Jewish men and women who are over eighteen with few exceptions.  For most all of the athletes it was their first trip to the United States.

Albion College President Dr. Peter Mitchell and former NCAA President Ced Dempsey, who retired in 2002, organized the trip during a visit to Israel, a process which began about four years ago.

The team’s visit was also arranged through the support of the America- Israel Friendship League (AIFL) who seeks to strengthen ties between the people of the United States and Israel.

“We agreed to host them as long as they could pay to get out here,” women’s athletic director Dr. Nancy Meyer said.  Meyer said a lot of work and planning went into the trip.  Bar Kalifa said the team was able to collect enough funds in Israel to pay for its flight to the United States.

Calvin was the team’s first stop on a seven-day trip which included stops at Olivet, Tri-State, Adrian, Alma, Kalamazoo and Albion.

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