jerusalem (ap) | New England Patriots team owner Robert Kraft, in Jerusalem this week to attend the reopening of a stadium he funded for an Israeli flag football league, focused on his ailing linebacker Tedy Bruschi during a tour of the Old City.
Last week, the injured linebacker asked the team’s owner to pray for him.
Following up, Kraft said he tucked a piece of paper in the Western Wall, a common practice at Judaism’s holiest site. Moments later a man approached Kraft and asked him if the paper prayer was for Bruschi.
“The nice thing is that people in Israel are following football in America,” Kraft said.
Kraft, whose team has won three of the last four Super Bowls, stood beside the Vince Lombardi trophy with the Old City behind him.
“This is the first time in the history of American football that the trophy has ever been outside of America,” Kraft said.
Kraft drew a parallel between his very American sport and the way Israel is run.
“You get three out of four Super Bowls by subjugating the ego for the good of the whole,” he said. “In Israel, this is in the fabric of the country, to create a democracy that thrives against the odds.”
Kraft and his wife attended the rededication ceremony at the stadium near downtown Jerusalem.
Kraft’s initial $120,000 donation in 1999 helped pay for the Kraft Family Stadium, a former soccer field that was converted into the home of Israel’s American Football League (AFI).
This winter, he donated another $500,000 to pay for artificial turf and other improvements to the stadium.
More than 1,000 men and women participate in AFI’s youth and adult flag football programs, founded by American expatriates living in Israel.