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Three generations of ice hockey in Israel: Nathan Eisner with his son and grandson, April 2026. (Courtesy via JNS)<\/p>\nThree generations of ice hockey in Israel: Nathan Eisner with his son and grandson, April 2026. (Courtesy via JNS)<\/p>\n
By Gary Schiff<\/p>\n
In a synagogue, a respected congregant often has a makom: a fixed place. So too in the locker room at the ice rink in Tnuvot, near Netanya.<\/p>\n
Nathan Eisner enters and takes his place. He often quips with a smile, \u201cI don\u2019t understand. I helped my kids tie their skates \u2014 why can\u2019t they come and help me tie mine?\u201d<\/p>\n
Eisner, 76, is still playing, in the midst of a war, scoring and encouraging others much younger than he. Just before Passover, he scored a hat trick.<\/p>\n
Drew Tick, who has been playing hockey with Eisner for almost four decades, said, \u201cNathan is our role model. He knows the game, has taught his kids and grandkids to skate and play, and he is still playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eisner is the son of Holocaust survivors who met in a Displaced Persons camp. His family moved to Canada after a brief stay in Israel. There, he helped establish a league for Jewish children and coached them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no leagues in Canada for religious kids, so we formed the Avenue Road League,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBoth of my sons, Uri and Amnon, learned to skate and started playing there. As adults, we played outdoors, Motzei Shabbat, in the Zionist Hockey League of Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Eisner made aliyah in 1990, ice hockey was just beginning in Israel. The first rink had opened in 1986 in Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, followed by another in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, a year later. \u201cWe had no Zamboni to clean the ice in Bat Yam \u2014 we used boards to scrape it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A league soon formed, with teams from Bat Yam, Netanya, Jerusalem and Haifa. Eisner played for Haifa and the Israeli national team. Paul Shindman recalled a 1990 game against Canadian peacekeepers attended by the Canadian ambassador.<\/p>\n
The Israel Ice Hockey and Figure Skating Association was established, and Israel later joined the international federation. In 1992, the national team competed in a tournament in South Africa, with players from around the world, including the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
Eisner noted that the Toronto Maple Leafs donated equipment to the Israeli team, which went on to compete in Spain, Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough all of this, the biggest fan of the team was Nathan\u2019s wife, Jozie,\u201d Shindman said.<\/p>\n
Today, Nathan Eisner\u2019s Israel hockey sweater is on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 1990s, we drove every two weeks \u2014 two and a half hours each way \u2014 to the rink in Metula. We also played at the rink in Holon,\u201d he said. \u201cDanny Spodek developed hockey clubs where my grandchildren learned to play. Today, all my children and grandchildren can skate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also recalled a visit from Toronto Maple Leafs figures Roger Neilson, Paul Henderson and Daryl Sittler. \u201cIt was wonderful to host them here in Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Today, Israel has newer rinks in Tnuvot and Ashdod, alongside older facilities, and plans to rebuild a rink in Metula. Tick said he hopes to see a rink in Jerusalem to replace the former temporary one at the First Station.<\/p>\n
Eisner added, \u201cWe are seeing new opportunities for ice hockey and skating across the country. If your concern is not making aliyah because of a lack of skating opportunities, there\u2019s no excuse. Israel lacks nothing. Where else can you play a weekday game with players of all ages \u2014 English-speaking Jews, good friends? What a blessing. It\u2019s a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Schiff is a Jerusalem-based resource consultant and guide connecting Israel and the United States. He plays hockey with Nathan Eisner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three generations of ice hockey in Israel: Nathan Eisner with his son and grandson, April 2026. (Courtesy via…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[63387,5,6,7280,63388,63389],"class_list":["post-563460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-gary-schiff","tag-hockey","tag-ice-hockey","tag-israel","tag-israel-ice-hockey-and-figure-skating-association","tag-nathan-eisner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116494342280076489","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}