The king of the city once lived at 13 Kadoshi Cairo Street in the Neot Rachel neighborhood of Holon.
His name was Israel Elimelech.
As befits a king, Clara and Albert Elimelech lived with their children and Israel, or Srulik as Clara called her beloved son - in apartment number 1 on the first floor of the building.
So that it will be easy for Srulik to jump up the stairs in huge jumps, and to walk with his huge bag along the streets of Eilat and the Histadrut coming to the trash hall that is on one street in May.
I lived on the third floor, although six years younger than Srulik, but already recognizing the scene unfolding under our noses.
Clara would host all these guys from the group at their house for formation meetings.
Her son, Niv Bogin, Moshe Reiss, Lior Stern, David Cohen, Eyal Shalom, Oren Shiloni, Avi Maor, whose nickname was "Negro", although the family name was originally Skorovich, Moti Daniel, Michael Carter and others who made up the legend.
I played for Hapoel Holon's children.
We practiced at two in the afternoon, and towards four or five the graduates emerged to the parquet of the tin hall, which at that time was not yet called tins, because the tin plates were assembled years later.
Balfour, the farmhand, was cunning with them, and Moon, Balfour's assistant, stood under the basket and returned balls to them, after he had climbed to the ceiling of the hall an hour earlier and hung buckets to help stop the leaks from the roof.
In 1977 I was 12 years old, and my team played Mickey Dorsman, who was always late in paying his monthly debt and did not get a stamp to stick on the Workers' Member's notebook.
Manager Motti Hellerman would yell at him, and Dorsman did not forget it, and one day bought the team and took a historic championship with it.
This year, '77, Holon played in the second league, and the game of the season on the rise was against Betar Tel Aviv.
In the afternoon training we did not get tickets for the game, but we were told - come and come in.
I arrived at seven, half an hour before, and I remember an evil usher standing at the entrance and slamming the heavy, blue iron door in front of our faces.
I had tears in my eyes.
We stayed outside and peeked through the cracks how Ofer Eshed, a great Holon player, who had been to Betar a season earlier, smashed our dreams and another 2,500 spectators. To score 23 of 65 points, and Betar defeated us 55:63 and advanced to the league.
A season later, with a young and anonymous coach named Pini Gershon, Holon came up, and Elimelech was king, only 18 years old.
Yesterday I passed the bleachers named after Ofer Eshed in the new hall in Holon.
Next to me sat my friend Ido Eshed, Ofer's son, and now the newspaper's great basketball commentator.
If I did not attribute a huge attribution, and the basketball season ended in a huge championship of Holon, for the second time in history (unless Herzliya won, after closing the issue, and forced one last game at the beginning of the week).
Holon, the city of children, is also the most important basketball city in Israel.
There are other good basketball cities, but Holon is an industry that has been an anchor for decades with 1,200 children in the youth departments.
Think about where Guy Goodes was at the start of the season, and where he is now.
Dismissed from the last Rishon LeZion, and now on the roof of the world.
2 man bit dog.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is no longer the league champion here. Maccabi has won the last four championships, but in the last decade it has lost the crown five times - to Maccabi Haifa, twice to Hapoel Jerusalem and even to Maccabi Rishon LeZion, which has now been relegated.
Maccabi "lost" the championship, because beyond the ethos "to the government we chose", which was common in the group Shimon Mizrahi / Shmlock / Moni Fanan, and a little less with David Federman, the gaps with which Maccabi opened from the rivalry, including this season - are not forces.
Maccabi's budget is about NIS 80 million.
The next big budget, of Hapoel Jerusalem - 30 million.
Holon lives on 12-13 million ... and if Herzliya is the champion at the end, it's a joke - less than 7 million shekels.
The salary of all Herzliya players is much lower than what Scotty Wilbikin earns.
Herzliya does not even have its own hall.
Her home is the hall of the "Jubilee" school in the city.
It has 1,200 seats.
If we look at the ten highest salaries in the league, almost all of them are paid at Maccabi Tel Aviv. , Bar Timor from Hapoel Tel Aviv has the highest salary - about the same as the stars of Holon and Herzliya.
Money alone does not guarantee anything, not a championship, not even a trophy.
Maccabi Tel Aviv was left destitute this time. They left the failure in Europe, despite the elimination of the Russian teams. Even in Israel, its rivals smell its weakness from afar. The really good Israelis no longer want, and do not run to play for, Once the bonfire of the tribe, degenerated into thinking and creativity that were supposed to cover a low budget in Europe, empires fall from within, and until they understand it there - events as we have now seen in Holon, Herzliya or Jerusalem - will soon return.
Aviadp65@gmail.com
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