Mordechai Hefez

Mordechai Hefez was born in 1930 in Alexandria

Hefez was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in Alexandria, Egypt. In the late 1940s he played for Maccabi Alexandria, a Jewish team in the Egyptian league. After Jewish players were barred from the Egyptian national team at the 1949 European Championship in Cairo, the team's players decided to break up the club and left the country.

He first moved to London and then immigrated to Israel near the end of the War of Independence, settling at Ein Harod. There he trained with other players from Egypt, and the group won a Hapoel tournament in Jerusalem as Hapoel Ein Harod.

Coach Micha Shamban then recruited the Egyptian group to Hapoel Holon, where Hefez played as a small forward. The team dominated the Hapoel league in the early 1950s, and other teams began to copy its style of play. He also played for the Israel national team and took part in the Hapoel team's trip to the Workers' Olympiad in Liège.

Hefez competed in the men's basketball tournament at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He died in 2010.