Join us on Shabbat morning during Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month to hear about the Israel ParaSport Center, where Israelis with disabilities come for physical and emotional rehabilitation through the power of adaptive sports and community, and to learn from a para-athlete.
Following Shabbat services and kiddush lunch, families will have the opportunity to play sports with these para-athletes during Shabbat is Awesome.
Anshe Emet is grateful to an anonymous donor for underwriting this year’s JDAIM Shabbat with the Israel ParaSport Center.
9:30AM
Shabbat morning services in the Sanctuary and Rose Crown Minyan
11:30AM
Rose Crown Minyan join Sanctuary service
11:30AM
Dialogue with Asael Shabo and Rabbi D’ror Chankin-Gould
12PM
Kiddush lunch
1PM
Shabbat is Awesome begins
2PM
Learn to play wheelchair basketball with Asael Shabo and Ilay Yarhi in the Red Gym
4PM
Shabbat is Awesome concludes
After losing his leg in a terror attack that took the lives of his mother and siblings, many feared that 9-year-old Asael would never smile again. But his smile returned at The Center after discovering a love for hydrotherapy and wheelchair basketball. Today, Asael is a professional wheelchair basketball player and proud father, representing The Center around the world.
Ilay is a wheelchair basketball player at the Israel ParaSport Center. He has played abroad twice on the U22 national team and in August 2025 on the Israel national team.
At the age of two, Ilay experienced bleeding in his spinal cord from an unknown cause, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He began playing wheelchair basketball at age nine and was part of the U22 team that won 3rd place in the 2021 European Championships. In June 2025, he captained the U22 team in the World Championships in Brazil. In August 2025, he played as part of the Israel national team in the Nations Cup in Germany where they came in fifth against some of the strongest teams in the world.
Ilay graduated high school in 2023. He is a one-point player, which means he is in the classification level for players with the most severe disabilities in wheelchair basketball.
