Israeli Soccer Player Celebrates Goal With Yarmulke From Sock

On August 18, in a playoff game between Israel's Hapoel Tel Aviv soccer team and Austria's Salzburg team, Hapoel forward Itay Schechter scored the winning goal and celebrated by pulling a kippah from his sock and putting it on his head.

As Adam Soclof reported in JTA's blog,

The stunt earned Schechter a yellow card and apparently garnered attention in Israel, where the gesture was widely interpreted as a triumphant gesture against the Nazi history of Austria’s past. Ynet reported that the kipah was given to Shechter by a cancer patient and a longtime Hapoel T.A. fan.

In an interview with One sport, declaring that he “would have put the kipah on even if they had put me in prison,” Shechter said the following (my translation from the Hebrew):

I wasn’t trying to anger anyone. A young tzaddik gave [the kipah] to me in the airport. I told my friend that I’d put it in my sock and if, G-d willing, I score, I’ll wear it; I didn’t think this was a provocation. I wanted to say Shema' Yisrael. What was going on in my mind was that, “I know that there are may Jews that are watching me from their home and are happy.”

On Aug. 21, during the opening match of the 2010-2011 Israeli Premier League, Shechter sustained a leg injury against Maccabi Haifa and is questionable for Hapoel’s Champions League rematch against Red Bull Salzburg in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Aug. 24. does anyone have a Hapoel Tel Aviv Tehillim book?