In Israel, Migrants Find a Home, Through Running
Excerpt:
Eventually, things changed. In September 2014, after lengthy lobbying efforts, the athletics association began acknowledging all student competitors under 18 regardless of their legal status.
As a result, Ms. Gebretsadik is now ranked first in Israel for girls under 17 and second nationally for women who compete in the 1,500-meter run.
Ramzi Abdoul-Jabar, who was born in Sudan and raised in Egypt, is ranked No. 1 for boys under 19 in five-kilometer and 10-kilometer races. Samuel Abuay, an Ethiopian Jew with Israeli citizenship, is ranked second in the same categories. The list goes on.
Alley Athletes has 70 male and female runners ages 10 to 26 from more than 15 countries, including Israel, Eritrea, Sudan, Nigeria, Russia and Ukraine. The team includes Jewish, Muslim and Christian runners, many of them high school students. Hebrew is their shared language.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/in-israel-migrants-find-a-home-through-running/?_r=0