Eliahu Amiel

Eliahu Amiel was born in 1925 in Alexandria

Amiel was born in 1925 to a Jewish family in Alexandria, Egypt, and attended a French school there. After high school he worked as a clerk in the insurance department of a Jewish bank. At 16 a friend, Zouzi Harari, brought him to the Maccabi Alexandria club.

Maccabi Alexandria won its regional league, and according to accounts King Farouk ordered the Jewish team closed. In 1948 Amiel was called up to Egypt's national team, but the Jewish players were removed before the London Olympics. In 1949 he was called up again for the European Championship in Cairo, but he and Harari did not play after reportedly being told to convert to Islam and take Arab names.

In 1949 Amiel moved to Paris, where he played for a local team and joined a training program of the Zionist movement Hechalutz. In 1950 he immigrated to Israel and settled at Kibbutz Ein Harod, where he worked in the fish ponds. With other players from Egypt he formed a Hapoel Ein Harod team that won a tournament in Jerusalem that summer.

Amiel played point guard for Hapoel Holon and the Israel national team, and competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics. In the late 1950s he coached the national team, including at the 1959 European Championship. He chaired the Israel Basketball Association from 1978 to 1982 and served as an international observer for FIBA.