When we arrived at the home of Nach Reznik, 93, who was also a football player for the Israeli national team, the pictures and certificates adorning the walls testify to his diverse life story: on one hand, a fighter in the Haganah and later in the IDF, and on the other hand, a former footballer for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
We returned with him to 1956, after Operation Kadesh, in which France and Israel collaborated and fought side-by-side. Relations between the two became particularly close, and the young state was greatly influenced by the rich culture of the French. This ranged from various private cars, through Hebrew versions of chansons, and even arms shipments that included tanks and Mirage aircraft.
Courtesy of the State Archives
In May 1957, ahead of Israel’s 9th Independence Day, the football and basketball teams of the French army arrived in Israel for a first friendly match. The young IDF did not have official sports teams at the time, so the task of assembling the teams was undertaken by the then Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan, and his deputy, and later also Chief of Staff, Haim Bar-Lev – who even enlisted the reserve national team coach, Eliezer Spiegel, for the mission.
Courtesy of the Bamachane Newspaper Archives
“Haim Buch, Amitzia Levkovich, Shaul Matania, Jerry Haldi, Aharon Amar, Yitzhak Nahmias, Nahum Stelmach, Rafi Levi, Avraham Mentschel, and Yosef Tchirik, and myself,” Nach, who was the team’s defender, listed the lineup – almost 70 years later. Most of the players were part of the Israeli national team’s squad, and some were re-drafted into the army for the IDF team. The training sessions primarily took place on the football field of the Tzrifin camp, and many soldiers came to watch their stars perform up close.
The big day arrived, and the match, held at Ramat Gan Stadium, was about to begin: “The then Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, took his seat in the VIP box, alongside the Chief of Staff, ministers, and even the French ambassador to the country – Pierre Gilbert.”
As early as the 20th minute, the IDF took the lead thanks to Rafi Levi. In the 53rd minute, Nahum Stelmach headed in the second goal, and the French narrowed the gap in the 76th minute. “But fortunately for us, the Israeli army quickly increased the lead a minute later – and decided the match’s outcome – 3:1 to us,” Reznik quickly declared with excitement as if seven decades had not passed since then.
The very next morning, newspaper headlines covered the victory and spoke of the friendly match that ended with the local team on top. Ben-Gurion himself spoke about the first football match he had ever attended, in one of the meetings later that week.
“It was a beautiful time that I miss very much,” he reminisced about those old memories. In our conversation, he also shared memories of his childhood in Tel Aviv. The young boy who bought his first pair of studded boots with money he received from collecting bottles, and eventually played throughout his career for his hometown team, Maccabi Tel Aviv.
But just as football was a significant part of his life, so was his military path. He first recalled his enlistment into the Haganah, by Shimon Peres: “He told me, ‘Go to Yarkon Street, I’ll give you a password – blue sky. Knock on the door, and say it.’ Then, they let me in, gave me a pistol to hold in my right hand, and a Bible in my left, and that’s how I swore in when I was 15.”
“I was wounded on the Golan Heights,” he added about his injury during military service. “I was traveling to the Hermon outpost, and on the way, cannons were firing at us. I advanced another half kilometer, and on the other side, tanks were standing. I left the bus and lay down under one of them. Suddenly, I felt a boom in my leg, and the shrapnel entered my leg.”
Indeed, almost 70 years later, Nach Reznik remembers the plays from that day, and remembers the tense moments from that special game. “I paid a heavy price for football,” he recalled, “but despite the injury to my leg, or whatever stood in my way – I did everything to play. Football is my life.”