PHOTO: Patricia Rice, right, congratulates a teammate following a game of Catchball at  Olympus Sports Center in Hillsboro Friday, Jan. 3. The club has been a source of exercise - and connection - for its members through both their own personal challenges and the turmoil affecting the Jewish world. (Photographs by Rockne Roll/The Jewish Review)

By JENN DIRECTOR KNUDSEN
For The Jewish Review
Patricia Rice has a question for all women: Ever heard of catchball? 
Whether you answer yes or no, Patricia also has a request: Come on out and play.
Created in Israel by Ofra Abramovich in 2017, catchball is a team sport for women that is very popular around the world. Israel has at least 200 teams around the nation, and today there are teams in countries like Canada, Cyprus, Mexico, Austria, Italy, Singapore, and around the U.S., including here in Portland.
Much like volleyball, as the name catchball suggests, it substitutes catching and throwing the ball for bumping and spiking. In Israel, the league is called Mamanet, and in Hebrew the sport is called kedureshet, which means netball.
While its name in English may be lost in translation, catchball proves that sport overcomes many barriers, linguistic and otherwise. And it helps bond people and create community, too. 
Portland is home to a loyal team of 14 women (though 16 would be ideal, Rice says), many of whom found their way here via Russia, Israel, and other points outside the PNW.  
“One of the things I feel that really helps connect the dots is sports,” says Rice, 58, a real estate agent and the de facto captain (or “mama”) of Portland’s only catchball team. 
Born in France, raised in Israel, and a Portland resident for 30 years, Rice credits catchball – and the tight and supportive community of fellow women on the team – with keeping her sanity in check.
“You start playing, and you just forget everything,” she said in a recent phone interview. 
“My life is full of stress,” Rice said, ticking off her demanding job, caring for her 80-year-old mother who is a Holocaust survivor and whom she helped move from Israel, and supporting her three adult children, two of whom have late-onset Tay-Sachs (LOTS), a neurodegenerative disease with no cure.
“Every time I get to catchball and every time I’m done playing, I get out of there with a big smile on my face,” Rice says. “We’re more about connecting and having fun than about sport.” 
“It has a really basketball-in-the-park kind of feel,” says Martha Klein Izenson, an attorney and mother of three, who joined the local team only three months ago. “I’m still learning the rules,” she said.
Izenson adds that the group dynamic keeps her coming back for more. She loves getting to know Israelis, the supportive nature of the group and the community it’s created that extends beyond the court.
At a recent Friday morning 1.5-hour catchball practice – at the Hillsboro-based Olympus Sports Center – Shirli Cohen momentarily took a seat on the bleachers, long enough to share her catchball story. 
Originally from Israel, Cohen said about a year and a half ago, a girlfriend she bumped into in a grocery story extended a casual invitation to come play.
“And honestly I thought I was too old for this,” Cohen, 54, laughed. Still, she joined her friend, watched from the sidelines – as women ages 20 to 60 gave it their all – and decided to give catchball a whirl. 
She immediately got “hooked,” she said. “We feel like we’re in junior high when we play.” 
“I remember commenting after my first practice that it was like a really fun, silly adult P.E. class,” said Angela Sim, a mother of four and currently the only non-Jew on the team. 
That was back in 2019. Since then, she’s experienced a divorce and a house fire. “The team was there for me through both of those difficult periods.” 
Sim, 49, recalls, “I’m not exaggerating when I say that within two days (of the house fire) I had linens for all of our beds, towels, clothing for myself and for my kids, a TV, a microwave, a toaster, and a pantry full of food. It makes me tearful remembering all the love and support I received.” 
Elena Lifschitz, 44, who was born in Russia and lived in Israel before making Portland home, took a quick break from the recent practice to echo her teammates’ sense of catchball community. “I love the game. It’s not only the game, but also the socializing I love, too.”
The team practices on Monday mornings at 10:30 a.m., and Friday mornings at 11 a.m.; the latter workout concludes the best way possible: with coffee and treats like cakes and cookies, often homemade. 
The women get together outside the gym, too, and not just for the hard times like Sim’s, or in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. The athletes regularly gather for birthdays, happy hours and dinner parties.
Even the women’s coach, Colton Wright, has been drawn into their orbit. A professional coach, Wright, 33, has been guiding the team for a year and joins in the regular post-Friday practice coffee klatch.
He calls the group “joyous” and full of “young energy.” 
Back on the court, during a quick coaching break, Wright gathers the women at the net to tweak their Western Quick Draw technique. Like all sports, this one’s got its own vocabulary. Some of which is in Hebrew. 
Has he picked up any? “Just a couple words,” he says a little sheepishly. “Like sheket” (be quiet).
Despite all the warm feelings, even catchball has a catch: It is short on funds. 
The monthly per-player dues of $100 barely covers costs, and yet the team wants to add more members and compete in more tournaments, such as in Las Vegas, or Seattle, which is home to 17 catchball teams. Rice is actively seeking more players and, ideally, a sponsor to relieve the financial burden of tourney registrations and travel expenses.
“My dream is to grow it and have more teams here,” Rice said. “I just want ladies here to know how fun and empowering it is.”
Interested? To catch the fever, email “mama” Patricia Rice at patriciasells4u@gmail.com.
A self-described dinosaur who still keeps a hand-written daily calendar, Jenn Director Knudsen has published work in The Boston Globe, The Oregonian, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Forward and HuffPost, among other outlets. Her most recent personal essay is available at The Mother Chapter. Find her on Substack.