New Jerusalem basketball team pays homage to group of six hostages slain by Hamas

A new Jerusalem basketball team is taking the court this season with the name Hapoel HaShisha, meaning “The Six,” in honor of the six hostages murdered by their Hamas captors in Gaza in August 2024, after 11 months of captivity.

Founders Nadav Haas and Amitai Weltman, both in their early 20s, have played basketball since childhood and wanted to create something in the sports community to honor the six, who were among the 251 abducted by invading terrorists on October 7, 2023.

Some 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, were massacred in the onslaught. Dozens of hostages were subsequently killed in Gaza.

“I always wanted to do something in the basketball world in Jerusalem from a professional standpoint and to commemorate Hersh’s memory and the ‘Beautiful Six,'” Haas said, referring to Hersh Goldberg-Polin and fellow hostages Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Alex Lubanov, Eden Yerushalmi and Almog Sarusi, who were killed in a Gaza tunnel.

Haas is family friends with Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and grew up with their son Hersh. Working with the Polins, Haas and Weltman received the endorsement of all six families to commemorate their loved ones with the new sports team.

Haas said the name also reflects unity in Israeli society and among these six murdered hostages, noting that Ori Danino, the only other Jerusalemite among them, was a fan of Beitar — a fierce rival of Hapoel — yet his family still gave its blessing to the new team.

Goldberg-Polin was an ardent supporter of Jerusalem’s Hapoel soccer and basketball squads.

Danino and Goldberg-Polin were together from the earliest days of their captivity in Gaza. Danino, a noncommissioned officer in the IDF who was off duty when he was abducted, reportedly fought with their captors for medical assistance for Goldberg-Polin, whose lower left arm was blown off in the October 7 assault.

“Rachel thought it was beautiful to have Hersh and Ori supporting the same cause,” said Haas. “That’s HaShisha; there’s a lot embedded in it.”

Hapoel HaShisha is a semi-professional basketball team affiliated with Hapoel Jerusalem Youth Basketball. It will compete in Liga Aleph, the fourth division of the Israeli Basketball Association, with players ages 18 to 30.

Each home game, held at the Cosell Sports Center on Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, will be dedicated to a sports fan lost on October 7 or in the battles that followed.

HaShisha also plans to host community activities inspired by the lives of the six captives it is named after, such as a yoga day honoring Gat and Yerushalmi, both yoga instructors.

While Haas and Weltman received the blessing of the Hapoel franchise along with some financial assistance from the team and the Jerusalem municipality, they’ve opened a crowdfunding campaign to raise more funds to pay the players and expand their resources.

They aim to raise NIS 200,000 (around $64,000) to help fund the team, build a community around it and deepen its impact in Jerusalem.

The new team offers a young men’s league option for players aging out of the Hapoel youth leagues who hope to develop further, Haas said.

“It gives kids a place to play once they turn 18, if they aren’t yet good enough to play in the first division,” he said.

Often, promising basketball players may join a first-division team, but as younger players, they often end up sitting on the bench without a chance to play.

“You may be the 12th-best player, but if you’re the youngest, you won’t get to play much,” said Haas.

The full roster for HaShisha isn’t yet complete; some players hail from Jerusalem, while the coach and other players are from nearby cities.

If HaShisha succeeds and wins its division, it will move up to the third division, becoming the development team for Hapoel Jerusalem and offering another platform for budding athletes in the city, Haas said.

The project is a dream come true for Haas, who has played since age five and played in the United States after high school before being drafted into the IDF.

Haas no longer aims to become a professional basketball player, but wants to stay involved in the sport.

“I realized that being a higher-level player may not be my goal, but I still want to play and have an impact,” he said. “It’s an honor for me, Amitai and the players to honor Hersh’s name and to make this project successful.”