Yehu Orland was standing on the sideline Thursday night at Barclays Center, fulfilling his duties as coach of Maccabi Ra’Anana’s basketball team as it took on the Brooklyn Nets in a preseason game.
His heart, however, was several thousand miles away in his native Israel, where earlier Thursday funeral services were held for one of his best friends, Lt. Col. Eli Ginsburg, who died earlier this week fighting in Israel’s war with Hamas.
“I lost one of my best friends,” Orland said before his team’s 135-103 loss to the Nets. “For me, it’s a personal tragedy. But for our country, it’s everybody’s tragedy.”
For Orland and his team, Thursday marked the beginning of a three-game tour through the United States, one that will continue with games against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday and Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday.
When the team arrived in the United States last Wednesday, it couldn’t have imagined what would begin taking place Saturday night, when Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel. More than a thousand Israelis have died, while dozens more have been taken hostage by Hamas inside Gaza.
According to its lead sponsor, Jeffrey Rosen, the team met as a group in the wake of the attacks and discussed whether the three-game tour should take place. But outside of one player who chose to return to Israel, the team otherwise agreed that the right thing to do was to continue with its plans to play.
“I think the shock of the war impacted everyone in unpredictable ways,” Rosen said. “I think everyone had personal challenges almost immediately. And yet we caucused as a group, as management and with the players, and I think we reached a conclusion pretty quickly that we felt it was in the best interest to continue the trip.”