The Stanford Grad is a hit in the Israeli League
by Scott Granowitz
January, 2000--It 
took over 23 years for WNBA star Jamila Wideman to visit Israel. A curiosity
of her maternal heritage and a desire to bring her basketball skills to another
level took over. On paper, what's the big deal? Many Americans of all types
of backgrounds discover their roots by visiting foreign places at some point
in their lives. Some even decide to work abroad for a few years, whether they
are in the business, educational, engineering, diplomatic, or athletic professions.
But the State of Israel and its surrounding Middle East is not an ordinary place, at least as perceived by typical Americans, whether they are of Jewish heritage or not. It's a tiny place mostly known for conflict, religious extremism, suicide bombs, and an annoying presence in the electronic/print media every day. Israel is one of those places that people have a negative, preconceived idea about before ever making an attempt to visit or get the real story. But Wideman, now 24, has made a strong attempt her whole life to block out stereotypes and see firsthand what a place or a person is really about.
"I think I was basically ignorant," said Wideman about her thoughts on Israel before arriving here last August to play professional basketball for the 1999-00 season. "I didn't necessarily have a feeling about this place, good or bad. Certainly the American media is mostly exaggerated with an image that's a little bit scary where most of the time Israel is on the news it is some kind of violent interaction between the Arab population and the Israeli population.... But I didn't have a clear image of what this place would be like. It actually made me more curious about it."
Like many male and female basketball stars that come to play in Israel, Wideman was pleasantly surprised to find a country that was predominantly safe and beautiful, just like most countries in the world. She also found a loving society that accepted her into their family. Additionally, Wideman, who was raised in a "neutral" religious environment, discovered a new spiritual meaning to her Jewish background that most Jews (religious or secular) never find on a Friday night in predominantly Christian America.
"My experience here has been that people have been incredibly welcoming and the community has reached out in many different ways," said the 3rd year WNBA point-guard and 1997 Stanford graduate. "In the first week I was invited into peoples' homes, especially my Israeli teammates took very special care to invite me for Shabbat dinner experiences that I've never been involved with before."
When Wideman decided last summer to experience Israel she thought about playing for league power LACHEN Ramat-Hasharon, which had approached her at the inaugural WNBA game in Los Angeles in 1997, shortly after the completion of her college career. Because Wideman's mother is Jewish, she can claim Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. Many American players, whether they be of Jewish, Italian, or Irish heritage, claim a "temporary" citizenship in the homeland of their ancestors, as European leagues typically allow each team to carry only two foreign players. So Wideman and other talented Jewish players from abroad are typically highly sought after in the Israel Basketball League. It certainly helps out when the WNBA's summer season does not interfere with the more traditional winter season that Israel and other foreign leagues have adopted.
Ramat-Hasharon scouted Wideman during her distinguished career at Stanford and knew she would be a big success in Israel. But at the time Ramat-Hasharon approached Wideman, she needed some time off from basketball due to a back injury and was starting a few charitable projects with under-privileged youth. Additionally, Wideman still needed to complete some coursework during the Fall-'97 semester to finish up her degree in Political Science and African-American studies at Stanford.
Even although Wideman is certainly talented enough to play this season for Ramat-Hasharon, last year's European Ronchetti Cup finalists and Israeli champions, Ramat-Hasharon had already signed their star Israeli point-guard and fan-favorite Aluma Goren. So Wideman found her way onto another league power, Elitzur Ramla (pronounced RAM-LEE). Ramla is a southeastern suburb of Tel-Aviv that has a negative connotation within Israel due to its low socioeconomic working class, high crime rate, and Arab and Jewish immigrant population. Additionally, Elitzur Ramla has a low budget this year and has been troubled with money problems the past few years, something that has led many players to leave for greener pastures. However, the placement of Wideman in Ramla was a blessing in disguise.
"The most interesting thing to me has been to come to Ramla, without having a context of what this city is compared to the rest of the country," marveled Wideman. "I didn't know, a rich city, a poor city, an old city, a new city. A lot of people once I got here asked where do I live and I said Ramla and everybody's reaction was 'Oh Ramla! It's not nice there.'"
Perhaps the fact that Wideman grew up in an interracial family with parents from entirely different socioeconomic lifestyles made her more accepting and interested in meeting people different from her and less fortunate. In any case, Wideman is someone to model oneself after.
"My impression with Ramla was very different from the reaction from people who I told that I lived here," said Wideman. "It's been interesting to be able to get an impression of a place without coming in with an attitude about it. The other thing is the mixture of people here, which has been very intriguing to me. Ramla has a large population of Arabs, Russians, and Ethiopians. I had no idea [coming from America] about the diversity within the Jewish population in terms of ethnic background. It was confusing to me at first. I didn't understand the relationship between the mass immigration of Ethiopians and their Jewish background, trying to figure out the secular Israel [80% of the population] as opposed to the religious Israel. These are things I am learning everyday... not just intellectually, my Jewish background means a lot to me and this is the first time I've had a chance to think about it."
As for basketball, Wideman had a wealth of knowledge on how competitive the league would be like before arriving here, upon speaking with former LA Sparks teammate Penny Toler. Toler, currently the General Manager of the Sparks, played three years in Israel and was to the Israeli Basketball League what Michael Jordan was to the NBA.
"I had heard a lot of stories from Penny about playing here," said the 5-6 point-guard. "She really enjoyed her experience, so I felt that I had a handle on what this place is like.... There were other players from the WNBA that I spoke with that have played here, like Sue Wicks, Linda Burgess, and Katrina Colleton, who is now back."
The Israeli league provides Wideman an opportunity to improve her weaknesses during a long season (August to April) in practice and in games against talented players. The Israeli league is filled with roughly 20 American players (Tangela Smith, Michelle Edwards, Ramla teammate Trisha Stafford, Penny Moore, etc.) with WNBA/ABL experience. It also boasts several talented Israelis such as Limor Mizrachi (who played last year with the ABL New England Blizzard) and Mila Nikolich (Houston Comets).
"I pretty much wanted to be in a structured basketball situation and try to make some improvements in my game for next season in the WNBA," said Wideman, who was picked up by the new Portland Fire from the Cleveland Rockers in the Expansion Draft in December. "It's a really an important season. It's a transition season."
On the court, Wideman has been working on her jump shot during practice sessions and has started to take on a larger share of the scoring load for Ramla. It is something that Wideman has struggled with since leaving Stanford. Although Wideman has averaged 6.2 assists per 40 minutes for her career in the WNBA, her career field goal percentage is an unimpressive 25.7%. Wideman thinks this is in part related to the short WNBA season and the struggling teams that she has been a member of.
"In the WNBA for the first two years [with the Sparks] I was on a team with people capable of scoring 30-40 points a game," explained Wideman. "My role on that team was not to be a scorer, it was to knock down the outside shot when I got open, enough to get people the ball whose job was to score.... As a rookie, first of all, it's a two-month season, it's not like you have a year to work into a system and get used to where your shots are going to come from. I was on a team that struggled, struggled, struggled. And I think my game suffered from that, especially because the more we struggled, the more I tried to get other people going and paid less attention to my offense. I think it probably hurt me personally, I think it hurt our team that I wasn't more aggressive offensively."
Wideman has picked up her scoring and is now averaging 8.9 points (including 14.0 in her last four games) in the league after a slow start in that area. A point-guard by nature, it is in Wideman's best interest that she thinks pass first before shot, but sometimes one needs to keep the defenses honest and help out a team in dire need of some offensive power.
" I scored at Stanford, my senior year I took on more of a scoring role," explained Wideman. "I had 30-point games, 25-point games, some nights I had little because it didn't matter if I scored. So I know I'm capable of it. I've been in a situation for close to three years now, just trying to find my offensive game again and that's one of the major reasons that I came here. I think that I'm really benefiting from the coaches [led by head coach Edne Dagan] in Ramla now. They certainly recognize that I have the ability to score and are really working with me and my team to put me in situations where I'm going to be able to do that."
Currently in 4th place in the 10-team Israeli league with an 8-6 record, Ramla is trying to solidify its place among the top five teams before regular season ends, as the league is split into two sections of five at this point for classification purposes. The Israeli league also has an open cup tournament where clubs from both the 1st and 2nd divisions compete in a round-robin style tournament. Ramla has reached the semifinals of this tournament and will travel to Jerusalem this March with a solid chance of winning the Cup as the competition becomes single elimination at this point, just like the unpredictable NCAA Tournament. The winner of the Israeli Cup gets the honor of representing Israel in the European Ronchetti Cup the following season.
Even though English is the second language of Israel and is spoken quite frequently in the streets, Wideman feels the need to pick up as much Hebrew as she can. What's the use of communicating with people in a foreign land under your own native tongue?
"I was thinking of doing Ulpan [a Hebrew language study program]," said Wideman. "It's something that I haven't done yet because our practice schedule in the morning is kind of in the middle. I'm still trying to work something out, there's a representative of our club who teaches Hebrew who might work with me a bit.... It's part of being in a place that is not yours. You're entering someone else's world. And yes I have a connection to that because of my background. I don't think that it's necessarily fair that I walk around and expect everyone else to speak English."
One thing for sure is that Wideman has had a tremendous influence on her Israeli teammates. Her hard work ethic, love of people, and leadership qualities have been the key to Ramla's surprisingly solid season in a league where the favorites are usually determined by how high their budget is. The team practices hard and has started to play better defense than most Israeli clubs, which usually overemphasize offense.
In a December game at league leader Ramat-Hasharon, Ramla lost 54-50, but was one of the few Israeli teams to stay with Ramat-Hasharon at their home this season. In this very intense, defensive struggle, Wideman completely shut down Ramat-Hasharon's Aluma Goren, who is the glue to their team and their leader.
"She may not be Ramla's best player, but she is their most important player," commented Ramat-Hasharon chairwoman Rachel Ostrowitz after the game. "On a given night, Ramla can beat us and they almost did.... We are very happy that she is in Israel. She makes our league better and her presence gives women's basketball in this country more credibility among the public."
The league is proud to have Wideman as a member, especially when some American players are afraid to come here based on misconceptions about what Israel is about. Wideman provides the rightful reasons on why any player (Jewish or non-Jewish) should decide to play in Israel.
"If you come to experience the whole place as a way of living and as a basketball experience," answered Wideman on why a player should play overseas. "If you come to embrace the whole experience, to me that's the only reason you should come. If you're coming just to play basketball and you're going to go back to your apartment and sit and watch TV and do whatever all day, then go anywhere. It won't matter to you where you go."
The Israeli league gained a great addition when this rakaz (Hebrew for playmaker) decided to play for Ramla. It is fortunate that they got her for this season because in all likelihood Wideman will be starting law school next September, something that has been in her plans and dreams since growing up in Laramie, Wyoming and Amherst, Massachusetts. But one season of Wideman is priceless for this little league and Israel is certainly appreciative of her presence.
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