From Hoops to Heights: An Interview with Noa Zelivanski

Noa Zelivanski was born in the small town of Timorim in the south of Israel, in the same town as Israel’s Olympic baseball star Assaf Lowengert. She currently plays in Holon, having spent her career playing in the south of the country. 

Growing up in Timorim, Noa played on the basketball court down the road from her house, the only girl playing amongst a group of boys. Describing herself as a tomboy, she said she never found it difficult to find support from her family. At the age of eight, she was signed up by the academy at Maccabi Ashdod, also in the south of Israel. 

During her first stint at Ashdod, Noa said that she was practicing twice a day with a “crazy” Russian coach, who treated the young players like adults despite their age. This training regime had a positive impact on  Noa as a young player, who said that the coach “taught me to be an athlete”. This meant that unlike other young girls growing up in the south, she was not able to go to the beach and malls regularly due to training. After spending time in the academy, she then moved around the country to other clubs. Despite travelling round the country to other clubs, Noa said that her mum was convinced to allow her to pursue her career properly after listening to a song with a message of sending children to live their dreams.

After training in another academy in Israel alongside other young athletes, Noa made the decision to move back to Ashdod to sign her first professional contract. Fortunately for Noa, she had chosen to sign for the strongest women’s basketball team in Israel with a number of superstar players, some of whom went on to play in the WNBA in America. In her first season with Ashdod, she even won the league. Although she played in a team of some very strong players, Noa said that she was able to learn a lot from these other players. 

“I just wanted to learn as much basketball as I can”, Noa said. 

After spending four seasons at Ashdod, Noa then moved on to Holon and Ramat Hasharon, even spending some time playing in Tel Aviv. It was during her time at Ramat Hasharon that she began playing as a starter during her career, in her first season there. When asked about if she had aspirations of playing overseas, Noa said that although her agents had not managed to get her a transfer to the WNBA, she did briefly play in Greece. She said that this was a good experience, although she struggled living so far away from her family in Israel. Playing in Greece even brought some religious challenges for Noa, including one instance during Yom Kippur. 

Due to Yom Kippur, she was unable to play in the team’s games and had to spend Yom Kippur in Bosnia with her husband as the team had a game there. 

Outside of her career, Noa has also been involved in a media campaign to boost the visibility of women’s sports in Israel. Known as the WSP project, Noa currently hosts a podcast with professional female athletes from across Israel competing in different sports, trying to increase exposure of women's sports in Israel.

Finding that she plays her best games in front of fans, Noa wants to grow women’s sports in Israel generally, saying that her games would sometimes only have around 30 or 40 people in attendance. 

When asked about her future aspirations, Noa said that she still wants to play in Europe, and to create more of an atmosphere around women’s sports in Israel, with her project focusing on as she puts it- “the power of women’s sports”.