Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C.

• 1. A Club, a Country

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  In 2014, Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Real Madrid to win the EuroLeague championship. The response was immediate: over 18,000 anti-Semitic messages flooded Twitter within hours. A basketball result had provoked a global wave of hatred against Jews. That reaction illuminated something that anyone who follows Maccabi Tel Aviv already understands. This club has never been simply a basketball team. It was established in the mid-1930s in Tel Aviv, part of an organization whose roots stretch back to 1906. In the decades since, the club became the most decorated basketball team in Israel. Why does basketball in Tel Aviv carry stakes that most sports fans would find hard to imagine? And what kind of players, coaches, and moments have made Maccabi what it is?

• 2. Domestic Dominance

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  The Israeli Basketball Super League played its first season in 1954, and Maccabi Tel Aviv won it. Winning became the club's natural state. From 1970 through 1992, Maccabi won 23 consecutive Israeli league championships. No other team could break through. In 1993, Hapoel Galil Elyon finally ended the run. The following season, Maccabi resumed its grip on the title and held it for 14 more consecutive seasons through 2007. Across all seasons, the club has claimed 57 Israeli league championships, 46 Israeli State Cup titles, and 11 League Cup titles.

  Yehoshua Rozin was involved with the club for 40 years, one of many coaches who first came to Maccabi as players. Ralph Klein started as an 18-year-old player and later returned as coach on five separate occasions. That pipeline of player-turned-coach created a culture of continuity that few clubs in any sport can match.

  Since 1963, the club's home court has been in Tel Aviv's Yad Eliyahu neighborhood. Originally an open-air facility for 5,000 spectators, it was later enclosed and expanded. Today it is known as the Menora Mivtachim Arena, with a capacity of 10,383. From 1969 to 2008, the club carried the name of Elite, Israel's largest food company, as its primary sponsor. Maccabi first entered the FIBA European Champions Cup in 1958, becoming the first Israeli club to compete at the top of European basketball.

• 3. Virton, February 1977

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  The year 1977 was the apex of the Cold War, and the Soviet Union was boycotting Israel entirely. Maccabi Tel Aviv had made it to the semifinals of the FIBA European Champions Cup. There, they were drawn against CSKA Moscow, the Red Army team. CSKA had won the prior USSR League championship. Six of its players had competed on the Soviet national team that defeated the United States at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Their captain was Sergei Belov.

  The Soviet Union had broken off diplomatic relations with Israel a decade earlier, and the consequences for this semifinal were immediate. CSKA refused to play in Tel Aviv. The Soviets also refused to issue visas to the Israeli players for a game in Moscow. In the end, Maccabi's home game was held in the small, neutral town of Virton, Belgium.

  The newspaper Maariv billed the 17th of February 1977 as "the fight between David and Goliath." Israel counted a population of 4 million people; the Soviet Union, 290 million. Israel had only one television channel at the time, and most of the country watched the broadcast. Maccabi won, 91-79. In Tel Aviv, 150,000 people gathered in what is now Rabin Square to celebrate. Many waded into the fountain, splashing in water and champagne.

  After the game, a TV announcer pushed a microphone toward Tal Brody. Brody shouted in his heavily American-accented Hebrew: "We are on the map! And we are staying on the map - not only in sports, but in everything." The phrase became a popular new saying in Hebrew. It is considered Israel's most famous sports quote. Thomas Friedman later quoted an Israeli in his book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" who framed the feeling in two layers. On the surface, it was basketball players beating the Russians. On a deeper level, it was "my grandfather beating them. It was our retroactive victory over the Cossacks."

  The Finals were held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on the 7th of April 1977. Yugoslavia was a Non-Aligned country that supported Palestine and maintained no diplomatic relations with Israel. The El Al plane that carried the Maccabi players to Belgrade was the first Israeli aircraft ever permitted to land there. Maccabi faced Mobilgirgi Varese, champions of Italy's top league, who had beaten the Israelis twice earlier that year. Jim Boatwright led all scorers with 26 points as Maccabi won the championship, 78-77. It was the first time Israel had won a championship of that caliber in any sport. Back home, 200,000 people gathered at Israel's National Park to celebrate. When the team returned, 150,000 Israelis were waiting for them. Four years later, Maccabi returned to the EuroLeague Finals in Strasbourg. Under head coach Rudy D'Amico, they defeated Sinudyne Bologna 80-79 to claim a second European title.

• 4. The Players Who Built It

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  Tal Brody was selected 12th overall in the 1965 National Basketball Association Draft. He came to Israel in 1966, intending to stay for just one year. He never left. Ralph Klein, Israel's most successful coach at the time, later said that before Brody arrived, Israelis had viewed basketball only as a fun game. Within a year, Brody's serious attitude had reshaped his teammates' approach. At his urging, the team doubled the number of training sessions it held each week. The coach shifted away from a slow-paced style to a fast-break offense built around Brody's quickness. In 1967, Brody was named Israel's Sportsman of the Year.

  Tanhum Cohen-Mintz was considered one of Europe's top centers in the 1960s. In 1964, he was selected to the first FIBA European Selection European All-Star Team, which played in Madrid. Five Maccabi players, headed by Avraham Shneur, represented Israel at its first EuroBasket in 1953, held in Moscow. Miki Berkowitz, Motty Aroesti, Lou Silver, and Eric Minkin helped Israel win the silver medal at the 1979 EuroBasket in Torino.

  Miki Berkovich spent 16 seasons with Maccabi, from 1971 through 1988. He holds the franchise record for EuroLeague scoring with 3,588 points, and leads all Maccabi Israeli League scorers with 6,060. Doron Jamchi played for the Israel national team for 16 years and holds the record for international appearances with 191, as well as the points record at 3,515.

  In 1978, the first basketball game between an NBA team and a FIBA team was held in Tel Aviv. Maccabi defeated the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets, 98-97. The club went on to play a record 18 games against NBA teams. In 1984, it beat both the Phoenix Suns and New Jersey Nets in a tournament held in Tel Aviv. In 2005, Maccabi became the first European team to win in an NBA arena, defeating the Toronto Raptors 105-103. In 1994 and again in 2004, Tel Aviv hosted the EuroLeague Final Four, the only Israeli city to do so.

• 5. The Second Golden Era

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  Ariel McDonald, Anthony Parker, and Nate Huffman helped lead Maccabi to the EuroLeague Finals in 2000. That appearance marked the start of what the club would come to call its second golden era. The following year, European basketball split into two separate competitions. Maccabi won the FIBA SuproLeague, the traditional FIBA tournament that had been renamed from the FIBA EuroLeague. Kinder Bologna won the newly established EuroLeague, organized by EuroLeague Basketball. It remains the only year in the history of European club basketball in which two organizations each recognized a separate top-tier champion.

  The era's defining run crystallized in the 2003-04 season. Derrick Sharp hit a crucial three-pointer to keep Maccabi alive in the EuroLeague Top 16 phase. It has since been described as one of the classic shots in European basketball history. Once through to the Final Four, Maccabi produced a championship-game performance of 118 points. They won the title, then did it again in 2005, becoming the first team to win back-to-back EuroLeague championships since 1991. Coach Pini Gershon, who had played in Maccabi's youth department, guided the club to all three titles in 2001, 2004, and 2005.

  The lineup of Šarūnas Jasikevičius, Anthony Parker, Tal Burstein, Maceo Baston, and Nikola Vujčić became a defining one in European club basketball. The team of 2003-04 and 2004-05 is generally regarded as one of the most entertaining ever assembled on the continent. Jasikevičius left after the 2004-05 season to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA. Maccabi reached the 2006 EuroLeague Final, but CSKA Moscow blocked a three-peat. Parker and Baston signed multi-million dollar contracts with NBA teams and departed. Vujčić remained for two more seasons, reaching another EuroLeague Final in 2007-08, before signing a multi-million dollar deal with Olympiacos. Derrick Sharp and Tal Burstein stayed, continuing with the team until 2011 and 2012, respectively. On the 8th of May 2011, Maccabi lost the EuroLeague Final to Panathinaikos, 70-78. Three years later, the club would make its most dramatic run to the championship.

• 6. Touching the Moon

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  In the 2013-14 EuroLeague season, Maccabi Tel Aviv finished first in their regular season group. The playoff round paired them against Emporio Armani Milano, without the benefit of home-court advantage. In the opening game in Milano, Maccabi trailed by 7 points with 30 seconds remaining on the clock. They won that game 101-99 in overtime. Two home wins followed, and Maccabi took the series 3-1 to reach the Final Four.

  In the EuroLeague semifinals, Maccabi faced CSKA Moscow. CSKA led by 15 points late in the game. Tyrese Rice scored the game-winning lay-up with 5.5 seconds remaining. Head coach David Blatt said after the game that Maccabi had overshot every possible expectation. When asked if the sky was the limit, Blatt replied directly. His answer: "In this storm of a season, Maccabi long ago touched the sky, and reached the moon."

  On the 18th of May 2014, Maccabi defeated Real Madrid 98-86 in overtime to win the sixth EuroLeague championship in club history. Tyrese Rice was named the Final Four MVP. Maccabi had entered the season as an underdog, with few expecting the team to reach the Final Four at all.

  Following the championship, David Blatt was hired as head coach of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. His assistant Guy Goodes was promoted to head coach at Maccabi. Later that year, Maccabi played the 2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, facing Brazil's Flamengo. Maccabi won the first game 69-66 but lost the second 90-77. An aggregate score of 156-146 gave Flamengo the title.

  Due to the Gaza war, Maccabi has played all home EuroLeague games at Aleksandar Nikolic Hall in Belgrade, Serbia, since the 2023-24 season. The club returned to the Menora Mivtachim Arena on the 11th of December 2025. The Iran war then prompted a second relocation to Belgrade. The GATE, the organized supporters' group that formed in 2017 when Gate 11 and Gate 7 merged, has followed the team through each displacement.