In soccer, a goalkeeper is the last line of defense, the one who absorbs the blow when everything else breaks down. It is, then, perhaps, the right position for Ben Levav, an 18-year-old from Palo Alto, California, who has spent the better part of four years absorbing blows: a ruptured spleen, two broken wrists, and a recruitment that collapsed just as it was peaking.
Yet, like all goalkeepers, each time he was knocked down, he got back up, and this summer, he will hopefully travel to Israel to compete in the 22nd Maccabiah Games. The hard part, he believes, is behind him.
Levav’s is a story both about an athlete who refused to let injury write his narrative, and a young Jewish man finding his way back to his roots at a point when such a choice carries real weight. He is also a kid from the Bay Area, who bet on himself when almost nothing was going his way.
Setbacks
Just a year ago, Levav’s path toward soccer looked far less certain. Playing during his high school years had left him with more scars than victories. Freshman year of high school he spent in Israel, playing on a youth team in Tel Aviv. He returned to the US and rejoined his high-level youth team, but the years that followed brought a life-threatening spleen injury, and a broken wrist that derailed his collegiate recruitment for soccer.
“I was talking to a lot of big [college soccer] programs, and then I broke my wrist,” Levav told The Jerusalem Report in a recent interview. “It felt like I was falling behind, and that I was just doing all this work for nothing. I sacrificed a lot for, ultimately, something that gave nothing in return.”
With no collegiate opportunities that satisfied him, Levav had to choose between continuing to pursue the sport he loved or giving up and accepting a more traditional path.
“I was originally super against the gap-year idea, literally up until May of last year,” he said. “I hated feeling like I was falling behind. I just wanted something normal, something to go my way.”
But beneath his exhaustion, he couldn’t walk away on those terms.
Year abroad
Levav made the decision to move to Valencia, Spain, to play soccer with the International Development Academy, and delay his start to university.
Growing up with an Israeli-Argentinian father, he already spoke Spanish, but beyond that, he was on his own. Living in a remote part of the country, he knew no one. His daily focus was on soccer, and little else.
Early on, registration issues kept him from playing in official games. He committed to excelling in training until his license to play soccer came through. Then he broke his wrist right before it did.
“I really felt empty,” Levav recalled. “I hadn’t made the connections with kids here that I assumed I would. I didn’t have anyone from the US whom I knew. No parents. I was pretty much on my own.”
His mother flew out for his surgery. With her support, he worked on a recovery plan with his directors and returned home to California for a week before heading back to Spain to finish what he started.
“I got to take a deep breath at home, see my family, and feel a little more comfortable. It made me want to work triple as hard when I came back. I came to Spain for a reason. I couldn’t let my journey end in the exact way I tried to avoid.”
Change of luck
His luck began to change. As his recovery progressed and he returned to the field, new collegiate soccer programs took notice. He received a Division 1 – the highest level of collegiate sports – offer to play soccer at a university. Then, in April 2025, a different kind of validation arrived: Stanford University accepted him for the fall of 2026.
“I read the acceptance letter a few times to make sure it was even real,” Levav said. “I finally got the sense of satisfaction I’d been looking for for years. The work I put in, the sacrifice I made, it was something good. I finally got the big win I was looking for.”
It was a milestone, but not the finish line. Before he begins his next chapter at Stanford, Levav is suiting up for the United States men’s soccer team at the Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv this summer.
“It’s really a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience,” he told the Report. “To play a sport you love, in a country that you love, with Jews from around the world. The opportunity to meet people, compete at a high level, and do it all in Israel.”
Levav said that Israel has always felt like a second home to him. His father was born in Jerusalem, and he spent most of his summers visiting family there and attending summer camp, first as a camper and later as a counselor. He even played soccer there during his freshman year of high school.
But playing pickup and soccer in a country you love is very different from representing your nation in the biggest Jewish sporting event in the world.
For Levav, competing in the Maccabiah Games is the culmination of two identities that have always run parallel: the serious goalkeeper recruited by elite American programs, and the Jewish kid who has spent his life connected to Israel, finally converging on the same stage.
“The one part of my life that Judaism and Israel haven’t overlapped with is my athletic career,” he said. “There wasn’t really a Jewish context to any of it. I never had the opportunity to have those two aspects of my life [coincide].”
This year, the timing carries a weight that goes beyond athletics. Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, Jewish communities in Israel and across the Diaspora have grappled with grief, fear, and uncertainty. Levav felt it personally, through family, through identity, through the knowledge that the Israel he loved was at war.
“You’re feeling their pain 6,000 miles away, but it’s hard to really understand what the kids in Israel are actually going through,” he said. “You’re competing here, doing what you love, and you’re representing all these kids who don’t have the opportunity to be here today. It can feel insecure to be a Jew in many communities right now. I think it’s important not to be afraid, and to hold pride in your Jewish identity at a time when it matters most.”
For the young man who spent the last year refusing to let outside forces decide his fate, the determination is consistent. Whether it was a broken wrist in Spain, or the weight of the world pressing down on Jewish identity, Levav’s answer has been the same: keep going, show up, and finish what you started.■