I LIFE IN ISRAEL I The Furnace of the 21st Century is Ready for Your Home Today! Proud sponsors Get a $200 Rebate when you buy a high efficiency furnace,, or high efficiency Central Air Conditioning. Get a $400 Rebate Double your savings, when you buy both. Hurry! The rebate is available for a limited time only, on a qualifying models exclusively. 7 O 3101 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD KEEGO HARBOR, MI 48320 We Aren't Comfortable Until You Are 682-3100 SERVING OAKLAND COUNTY SINCE 1945 Jerusalem Rugby Club players practice. English-Speaking Olim Bring Various Sports DANNY BEN-TAL Special to The Jewish News WE SHIP FURNITURE m c AGAtri b Wat 6453 FARMINGTON ROAD W. BLOOMFIELD 855.5822 Music by COSTUME JEWELRY OF DISTINCTION TRUE FAUX' offers sophisticated reproductions of Chanel, Bulgari, Harry Winston, Cartier and Tiffany pieces, as well as vintage style originals created in sterling silver, marcasite and Parisian enamel. 280 N. WOODWARD IN THE GREAT AMERICAN BLDG. BIRMINGHAM MI (313) 433-1150 TRUE 141 LX® JEWELRY REGISTER NOW FOR BALLET TAP JAZZ BALLROOM. CONTEMPORARY COUPLES DANCING PRE-SCHOOL PROGRAMS ALSO AVAILABLE REGISTER NOW SPECIAL CLASS RATES AVAILABLE FOR WEDDING PARTIES 3080 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD 38 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1989 681-4101 Sam Barnett Big or small, we custom the music to your needs 968-2563 S ports-loving immi- grants from English- speaking countries often arrive in Israel with more than mere memories of their favorite sport — they bring with them rugby boots, hockey sticks, baseball gloves, cricket bats and plenty of en- thusiasm to transplant their pastimes to the Holy Land. Rugby, for example, had never seriously been played in the country until 1970, when a group of South African olim studying at Jerusalem's Hebrew Univer- sity got together to organize an impromptu rugby game against some friends from Tel Aviv University. Together with • a number of South Africans living on Kibbutz Yizre'el and other ex-patriots studying at Haifa's lbchnion, they formed the national rugby. league. Midway through that in- itial season, Alvin Hoffman, who had played in the nor- thern Transvaal league until his aliyah in,1963, joined the club. Now, at 48, the powerhouse forward is still enthusiastically chasing every ball. "What I love about Israeli rugby is the variety of backgrounds of the players," he says. "The current Jerusalem squad includes English, Scottish, Welsh, French, Dutch, Argentinean, American, Canadian, South African and Israeli players." Now in its 18th season, the Jerusalem Rugby Club, which plays under the auspices of the Hebrew University, has become an in- tegral part of the city's Anglo- Saxon community. Randy Kahn of Texas in- troduced baseball to Israel in the mid-1980s, forming the officially-recognized Israel Association of Baseball. A handful of kids had in fact been playing regular pick-up games in Jerusalem's Sacker Park for a number of years, but it was only when Kahn arranged for Mayor Teddy Kollek to throw in the first ball, for a 1986 junior game that people took the idea seriously. "There's enough skill and enthusiasm out there to take an Israeli baseball team to the World Cup by the year 2000," sums up Kahn. Senior softball has been go- ing for a decade now in Israel. Seven teams formed the Jerusalem division last season (one of three leagues now operating in the country) and the game is flourishing. There's even a regular women's game every Friday afternoon at Jerusalem's Sacker Park. "We're starting to reap the benefits of having a junior league feeding us players," says Bert Faudem, manager (and pitcher) of Focus, one of the capital's top teams. "But we're desperately short of funds to build a proper dia- mond and purchase new equipment." As the echo of the first cuckoo of spring fades into the distance and the last grains of matzos are swept away for another year, cricket, pro- bably the most incongruous of all sports played in the Mid- dle East, begins its season.