Modest but athletic
צילום: אלכס קולומויסקי
Playing football in a skirt
Israeli flag football league, largely dominated by ultra-Orthodox women, gaining popularity thanks to devoted players
Dressed in skirts and under the watchful eye of a guard to protect them from peeping Toms, some 100 ultra-Orthodox women play flag football in Jerusalem every week.
Six years ago Yona Mishan decided to bring the popular American college sport to the country. Along with several young religious women, who knew the game from their college days, he set up an amateurs' league in the country.
In the last two years the sport has become quite popular here too, after it was recognized by Ayelet, the Federation of Non-Olympic Sport in Israel. Today the Israeli team, with coach Mishan, is ranked fourth in the world.
Running in skirts (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Fourteen teams take part in the Israel flag football league that opened this month.
"This game is unfamiliar to the Israeli public, and I hope this will change and that Israeli-born girls and secular girls join us as well," said Shanna Sporng, 22, who plays for the Jerusalemite Big Blue team. "Since we are religious it's hard for us to join other competitive sports in Israel, because most of those sports include games on Shabbat," she explained.
In order to enable the religious players to participate, it has been agreed that each woman is free to wear what she likes for the game. And so, the games offer amusing scenes such as that of a 15 year-old teen girl with shorts chasing a 40-year-old woman wearing a skirt and a head cover.
"My husband is very supportive and encouraging," said Aliza Zussman, 33, a mother of four who plays for the Mothers of Modi'in team. "I wear a skirt and put on a head cover, keep the Halacha and at the same time exercise and enjoy the competition," she concluded,
