Coby Gold was a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, when he received a very strange phone message.
The message went something like this: “Hi, my name is Roni, calling from Israel. We have been following you, and we are pretty sure you are Jewish. Are you Jewish?”
The weird message turned into a life-altering opportunity when Gold discovered that “Roni” was Roni Lupu, a sports agent representing some major talent in Israel. Lupu was calling Gold to see if he would be interested in playing professional basketball in Israel after he graduated from college.
Gold remembers feeling stunned by the whole proposal, starting with the fact that an agent in Israel had found him in snowy Minnesota.
“I told my mom, ‘I wonder how he knew I was Jewish?’” Gold recalls. “And then I thought, ‘Well, my name is Gold and maybe he could find my bar mitzvah online.’ But then I thought, ‘Is this real?’”
Turns out it was completely real, and that is how Gold found himself going straight from college to Israel to play basketball in a country at war.
But just like that first phone call, the year was packed with strange moments and great opportunities, all still fresh in Gold’s mind now that he has returned to Colorado.
‘Are you sure this is where you want to go?’
At 6 foot 2 inches, Gold says he has had to “figure out my game as the shortest guy on the court.”
He started playing basketball seriously in high school at Kent Denver, and he wanted to attend a college where he could study economics and continue his basketball career. Macalester fit the bill.
“I had a really good career there,” Gold says. “I loved the coach, met close friends, was team captain, All-Conference, and All-Academic.”
But Gold’s time at Macalester didn’t start on a high note. He arrived for his freshman year in the middle of COVID lockdowns and found himself sitting in a dorm room, taking classes remotely, and trying to keep warm through a Minnesota winter. That’s when the idea of taking a gap semester in Israel through Aardvark Israel hit him.
“It was my first time in Israel, and the people were so welcoming,” he says. “People seemed so free and happy, living life to the fullest, going to the beach, eating great food. Israel really appealed to me.”
Gold’s parents had traveled to Israel and were delighted that their son had taken this trip.
“They wanted me to really explore my Jewish identity,” Gold says. “But when I left for Israel the second time, my mom was really worried.”
During his senior year, Gold stayed in touch with Lupu, checking out his reputation, sending him highlights from his games, and confirming that yes, he is Jewish. By June of 2024, Gold left for Israel with an offer from a team in his pocket waiting to be signed. But this trip was different. He was going to a post-October 7th Israel, a country at war. His mother was nervous about his safety, but there was no stopping him.
“Ever since I was a kid, I have wanted to play professional basketball overseas,” Gold says. “And this was a chance to do it in Israel where I wanted to live.”
What Gold had not anticipated was the history and geography attached to the team that had offered him a position. Not until he headed to his first practice and the cab driver asked him “Are you sure this is where you want to go?” did he realize how wise he had been to check out the team before he signed.
‘Problems in the U.S. don’t seem that big’
The team was Hapoel Bnei Kfar Kassem, located in the Arab city of Kfar Kassem, home to a notorious 1956 massacre. The cab driver told Gold he was willing to drive the 45-minute trip from Tel Aviv straight to the gym but gave him some advice: “You don’t want to get lost there.”
After one practice, Gold told his agent that he could not envision playing on the team for the next seven months. In true sports agent style, Roni Lupu came up with a better offer—Gold would try out for Maccabi Rishon LeZion, one of the most established and popular basketball clubs in Israel. Within a matter of weeks, Gold was on the team.
He spent the next seven months living in the neighborhood of Florentin in Tel Aviv, commuting to practice with one of his teammates, Omer. Omer spoke very little English, and Gold’s Hebrew was rusty, but with time, each got better. The basketball coaches use English, until, Gold says, they get mad or excited, and then, “They scream in Hebrew, and I had no idea what they were saying.”
Gold describes basketball as a “slower game” in Israel, more structured, and more physical: “The refs don’t call fouls.” It’s gaining in popularity, particularly after a former NBA player Patrick Beverley signed to play in Israel and an Israeli player, Deni Avdija, is now playing for the Portland Trail Blazers. Gold praises the enthusiasm of Israeli basketball fans and believes that basketball has increased in popularity because of the ongoing war in Israel.
“All the time I was in Israel, there were sirens going off and people were going into bomb shelters,” he recalls. “But basketball gave people a chance to watch some of the best players in the country and just be fans and have fun.”
While he was in Israel, Gold also had a chance to work part time with Ibex Investors, a venture capital firm based in Denver with an office in Tel Aviv.
“I could walk to the office every day for three months before practice and meet the founders of all the emerging startups in Israel,” he says. “It was an unbelievable learning experience.”
But his basketball contract was month to month, Denver was his home, and by March 2025 Gold was eager to return to surprise his brother and his wife the day before their wedding.
Gold plans to stay in the U.S., putting his basketball dreams on hold while he develops a career. But while he has left Israel, Israel has not left him.
“To be in a place where there was war every day gave me so much perspective on how Israelis live their lives,” he says. “One minute there were rockets being fired and the next minute everyone went back to normal life. I hope to keep that perspective forever because now the problems in the U.S. don’t seem to be that big. I try to remember the time in the bomb shelters and think how lucky I am to be here.”