From the Sidelines: The World Series and Jerusalem

Many fans will be staying up late to watch the Red Sox games.

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By Amihai Zippor

When the Boston Red Sox won the deciding game of the 2004 World Series I was on a return flight to Israel and received the news at 4 a.m. from the crew’s captain. At the time, being notified over the Atlantic Ocean that my hometown’s baseball team won its first championship in 86 years left me, literally, with little room to jump up and down.

Instead, I was strapped into a chair, only able lift up my hands and salute the Old Town Team until I returned to Jerusalem to watch the highlights. Now that the Red Sox are once again in the World Series, this time competing against the Colorado Rockies, and having just been in the US where I attended my first baseball game in six years at Boston’s Fenway Park, I’m extremely excited for the prospect of another championship banner.

However, this year Jerusalem members of “Red Sox Nation,” as its global fanbase is often referred to, have the growing tradition of Rockies fans to contend with, even though the Colorado club is only 15 years old compared to the 106-year history of the Red Sox. Furthermore, both of us have the daunting task of staying up late to watch the games, which are taking place on the other side of the world.

“My parents moved from Colorado to Israel 26 years ago, yet I was born a Rockies fan,” says Katamon resident Avishai Sussman. According to Sussman, his home is well known to many yeshiva students from Denver who “come over pretty often” to catch the events live on TV. “My father and I stay up to watch the games,” he says, admitting it causes them to “start the next day late.”

The Sussmans say that had they been able to secure tickets for the game, they would have been willing to fly to Colorado. Meanwhile, Sarah Rubinson, a student at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and a Colorado Rockies fan who has been in Israel since July, just happened to have planned a trip home without knowing her team would still have a heart beat so late in the season.

“My entire family are die-hard Rockies fans,” Rubinson says, recounting how when she was in Sinai several weeks ago she returned home to find six messages from her brothers updating her on the team’s standing. “During the playoffs my family would call at 5 a.m. wanting to share their joy with me over the team’s wins,” she recalls.

Still, for Rubinson, being a baseball fan in Israel is hard because she’s a lot more aware of the camaraderie in the States. “I feel like it’s my personal mission to bring Rockies pride to Israel,” she says.

That delight in being from a city with a successful sports franchise is no doubt well known among the capital’s Red Sox fans, a tradition that for many extends into their golden years.

“Every day I read the paper to see what’s happening,” says 94-year-old Edith Feldstein, who made aliya last March. “I’m a Red Sox fan and I like it when I know they are winning. I enjoy it and having a Jewish manager and Jewish player on the team makes it that more special,” she says. Though Feldstein may not be staying up all night to catch each inning, many other former Bostonians like myself will be braving the long hours, hoping the best of seven series ends quickly – not only for the sake of winning but in order to stabilize our schedules.

That said, and with the critical moment at hand, Rockies enthusiasts like Sussman politely wish the opposition “Good luck in another year,” while Boston sports devotee, Jerusalemite Eliana Kinderlehrer, who is from Boston but lived in Colorado, has no qualms when she says, “Go Sox!”