On Kids and Football

My father was born and raised in a village called Moldovița, nestled at the feet of the densely forested Carpathian mountains in Romania. One of my favorite tales he used to tell us about his childhood is about the Jewish kids’ football team Maccabi Moldovița. All of the boys dreamed about playing in a football team, but they didn’t even have a real ball. This didn’t stop them though, and they came up with a plan: the Schmoll shoe paste company had a sales promotion: collect 100 shoe paste caps, send them to the factory, and you’ll get a free football! The kids did their best to waste as much shoe paste as they could, which of course led to the indignation of their parents, but finally they achieved their goal and became the proud owners of two new, shiney footballs.

The only thing missing now was a football stadium. The local priest has kindly donated a piece of land belonging to the Orthodox church to the Jewish football enterprise, and the fathers improvised two goal frames from some pieces of lumber, but without nets. In order to inaugurate their new stadium, the families invited the venerated Maccabi Câmpulung club to a friendly match. If they didn’t lose, so they were promised, they’d be able to join the Maccabi league of Bukovina!

The long-awaited day arrived, and the kids were waiting for their guests at the bus station, but the bus didn’t show up. A few hours later, the news came that the bus broke down, but the guests were on their way on a chariot drawn by a horse. The Moldovița boys ran to the outskirts of the village and sat at the side of the road, waiting impatiently. When the Maccabi Câmpulung players finally arrived, there was much rejoicing, and everybody precipitated to the new stadium, some by chariot, some by foot.

The Moldovița players, who prepared for the occasion for weeks, bravely withstood the challenge, and the game was still at 0-0 at the 85th minute. My father, who was a wing back, tried to repel an incoming attack by a Câmpulung player, and had succeeded in kicking the ball away, but unfortunately he kicked it straight into the goal, the Moldovița goal! At first he didn’t understand what happened, but after a few seconds he realized the disaster that befell his team! There’s no need to recount the last moments of the game. Maccabi Moldovița lost, all because of him. As soon as the game ended, he ran home, broke into bitter tears on his bed, and wept himself to sleep. In the following days he was filled with shame, and his friends turned their back on him, but with time they forgave him. That was the end of Maccabi Moldovița’s attempt to get into the Maccabi league, and besides, in a few short years all of their dreams became impossible.

This all happened almost 90 years ago. Yesterday, September 26th 2026, in the village of Umm al-Khair in the West Bank, the local children waited impatiently in their football stadium for their guests, Palestinian national team players as well as a delegation of Israelis and foreigners, for a friendly match, but the guests did not arrive. In their stead, a group of soldiers from the “Israeli Defense Forces” came, holding a closed military area order, and commanded all present to leave immediately. Why? Because.

My father has left us more than ten years ago, but his stories about the trampled dreams, children’s dreams, about the persecution, the cruelty, the violence and the life of refugees (which fortunately came to an end a few years later), still live in us. What would he have said, what would he have done, if he saw how his own people are trampling the dreams of children? And what can I say, what can I do?