A St. Louis youth soccer team staged an impromptu celebration on the first night of Hanukkah from their Phoenix hotel after a scavenger hunt to find an important item: a menorah.
A missing menorah
Lizzie Berman and Michael Lourie, both soccer parents, accompanied the Lou Fusz MLS team on the trip. Their sons Chase Berman and Ari Lourie make up a small percentage of Jewish players on the squad. Berman, whose family attends Temple Israel, has a small electric travel menorah but in the haste of travel prep, she forgot to pack it.
“With Hanukkah starting on Sunday night, we really wanted to be able to celebrate, not just with our boys,” Berman said. “We try to include the whole team. A lot of them have been playing together for a really long time. Sunday morning, we woke up to the news of what had happened in Australia, which was terrible and horrendous.”
A late-night invite
Berman had been in contact with Lourie, who was also searching for a menorah. He tried a WalMart but had no luck. A Walgreen’s pharmacy looked promising, so Berman tried it and found bags of gelt and a few dreidels, but no menorah. Then she remembered there was a CVS pharmacy nearby.
“They had a much more plentiful supply at CVS, so I was able to get a little menorah and some candles and a lot more gelt,” she said. “After the game, Michael dropped it on our team chat and said we would be lighting the Hanukkah candles at 10 p.m. in the lobby for anyone who was interested.”
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Who showed up
As the three Jewish team members and their parents prepared to light the little CVS menorah, a large group of non-Jewish team members and their families gathered to join in.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a group congregated there of players and parents. There was a group of boys in the hot tub and so as I was getting the candles set in the menorah, Michael grabbed the boys. They came out of the hot tub with towels wrapped around them for our little Hanukkah celebration.”
Why it mattered
Ari Lourie told the Hanukkah story to the gathering, which generated a number of questions from his non-Jewish teammates about the holiday.
“They were well thought out questions and thoughtful wonderful conversations,” Berman said. “Then we lit the candles and said the blessings. I broke out the gelt and the dreidels. They were all very into it. It warms my heart. It was the sweetest celebration and the best way to be away from home on a really sad day and celebrating with our team.”
For Chase Berman, a 14-year-old freshman at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, it also served as a bonding experience with his teammates.
“I think it just makes them that much closer,” Berman said. “The best thing we can do is to live Jewishly right now and to show our kids that these things are terrifying but it’s not going to stop us. We’re proud of who we are.”
| RELATED: St. Louis is getting its first-ever Hanukkah pop-up bar
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