Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The percentage of Israeli households with connection to the Internet, 1997-2008. (Data: Israel Central Sta-
tistics Bureau. Chart: Eytan Gilboa. Drawing by Bill Nelson.)
language Israeli newspaper sites are among the most frequently visited in the world. A large
number of blogs also exist in both Hebrew and English.
SPORTS
Israel's most popular sport is soccer (football), although basketball has gained a following,
particularly among the higher economic strata. Israelis closely follow international competi-
tions when their national team competes or when individual Israeli players or even coaches are
involved. Games with country's leading teams —Beitar Jerusalem, Maccabi Haifa, Hapoel Tel
Aviv, and others — regularly draw crowds of thousands. Top soccer stars are household names.
Yet Israel's achievements in international soccer competitions are modest. The high points
in history occurred in 1970, when Israel qualifi ed for the World Cup, and in 2003, when Mac-
cabi Haifa beat Manchester United 3 - 0 in the Champions League. But a number of Israeli play-
ers have risen to top levels in Europe, notably Yossi Benayoun, Eli Ohana, and Eyal Berkovic.
Sports are not a part of Jewish tradition. It was only in the late nineteenth century that this
changed, when modern-oriented European Jews, mainly university students, became inter-
ested in athletics. The roots of modern Israeli sports are in the international Maccabi move-
ment, a coalition of sporting groups that became part of the Zionist organization during the
pre-state period. The Maccabiah Games, an international Jewish sporting competition equiva-
lent to the Olympic Games, began in 1932 and is an important event in Israel.
Given the political organization of the pre-state era and in the country's early days, many
of the soccer and, later, basketball teams represented parties and political movements: Hapoel
represented Labor; Beitar, what is now Likud; Maccabi, centrist parties; and Bnei Yehuda, the
National Religious Party. While these names remain, they have little signifi cance except for
