Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel

The idea for the film had been circulating for years before it came to fruition. Major League Baseball reporter Jonathan Mayo repeatedly urged the filmmakers to make a documentary about Jewish professional baseball players.[4] The project gained traction once Team Israel qualified for the 2017 WBC, an event Kramer likened to "the Olympics of baseball."[4] Though the filmmakers knew they had a compelling premise, Kramer recalled that they had no way of anticipating how dramatic the story would become — he had initially expected something like a "Bad News Bears" remake, only to find that the players far exceeded expectations.[4]

The three directors had been friends since their Young Judea camp days, giving the project a personal dimension alongside its sports narrative.[1] Kramer described filming as "grueling but fascinating": the crew traveled to Israel, South Korea, and Tokyo to follow the players through training, competition, and a 10-day Birthright-style trip to Israel.[4] Despite the added pressure of performing in front of a camera, the players cooperated throughout, and one player told Kramer that watching his own games in the finished film still left him feeling on edge.[4]

Published listings give the film's running time as either 85 or 91 minutes.[1][3] It covers Team Israel's journey from the September 2016 qualifying round through Round 1 in Seoul and Round 2 in Tokyo during March 2017.[1] The story is told primarily through the perspectives of five players: Josh Zeid, Ike Davis, Ty Kelly, Sam Fuld, and Cody Decker.[1]

The documentary opens with a scene that immediately frames the unusual nature of the team: CEO Peter Kurz and assistant general manager Margo Sugarman pore over birth, circumcision, and wedding documents to verify potential players' Jewish heritage.[1] Under the WBC's Heritage Rule, a player need only be eligible for a country's citizenship — not born or raised there — to represent it. As a result, nearly the entire Team Israel roster consisted of Americans, many with limited prior connection to Jewish religion or culture.[1]

While the film includes footage from all of Team Israel's WBC games, its central focus falls on the players' 10-day trip to Israel in January 2017.[1] The journey begins aboard casino magnate Sheldon Adelson's private plane and takes the players to landmark sites including the Dead Sea, Masada, Yad Vashem, the Western Wall, and Jerusalem's Arab shuk.[1] The film balances those weighty visits with lighter moments: karaoke sessions, belly dancers, and players purchasing shirts for their former or current Major League teams with their names written in Hebrew.[1]

One memorable scene shows Bet Shemesh mayor Moshe Abutbul welcoming ten players and their partners to a groundbreaking ceremony for a planned baseball field and stadium. Abutbul told the group, "If you want something to grow, you plant seeds," and the assembled players planted a white baseball in the ground as a symbolic gesture for the sport's future in Israel.[1] Footage also captures the players receiving a "rock-star-like" reception, complete with autograph requests, throughout their time in the country.[1]

In a later interview about his Team Israel experience, catcher Ryan Lavarnway described his first visit to the Western Wall as transformational. "I swear to God, I felt God for the first time," he recalled. Lavarnway said he thought a documentary camera had captured him crying at the Wall, giving him a treasured opportunity to revisit the moment, although the interview transcript did not identify the documentary by title.[5]

Director Miller observed that the players' Jewish development had followed a different path from that of the filmmakers themselves — shaped not by formal religious upbringing but by playing baseball, confronting antisemitism, and feeling culturally disconnected.[1] Ike Davis said that he could trace his non-Jewish father's family back five or more generations but barely one generation on his Jewish mother's side because most of her relatives were killed during the Holocaust. He described the Israel trip as a learning process and spiritual journey and said the players were representing relatives killed for being Jewish.[1]

The film traces how competing under the Israeli flag, visiting the country's historic sites, and experiencing a shared Jewish identity on a global stage brought many of the athletes into a closer relationship with their heritage. Miller later said the players had arrived with negative experiences but returned with greater pride.[1]

The film premiered in New York at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, where a packed audience gathered to relive Team Israel's WBC run and hear from players about their experiences in Israel.[1] In 2023, Lavarnway encouraged listeners to download the team documentary on Amazon, although the interview transcript did not identify the film by title.[5] The Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival included the documentary in its 2018 lineup, listing it as a U.S. production in English.[3]

The film's central arc takes Team Israel from the "equivalent of the Jamaican bobsled" squad to a third-place world ranking, a trajectory that gave the story appeal beyond sports fans.[2] At the New York premiere, Miller said audiences had responded enthusiastically and were celebrating the team's victories as though they were occurring in real time. Team executive Peter Kurz also reported a 30 percent increase in the number of Israeli children playing baseball since the WBC.[1]

Kramer argued that the film's audience need not be baseball enthusiasts or Jewish: "You don't have to like baseball or be Jewish to like the movie. It's the best underdog story I've seen in a long time."[4]