Visual arts | Defeating the forces of Babylon through love and soccer

Tel Aviv | A rooftop apartment on a dusty Tel Aviv street filled with small manufacturing plants and building-supply stores is as good a place as any from which to launch a self-styled cultural and social revolution. Using red-clad players and supporters from local side Hapoel as leitmotif, artist and autodidact Ido Shemi shows how benevolent objectives might be achieved through humor, creativity and football.

Grown in Galilee | Bnei Sakhnin, by cultivating football, hopes to harvest peace

Sakhnin, Israel, Sept 5 | A small Arab Israeli town of 25,000 residents, nestled in a lower Galilee valley among fig and olive orchards, with an illustrious history and a difficult present, has become world famous within the past three years—all thanks to its soccer team.

A new documentary film, Sons of Sakhnin United, examines Bnei Sakhnin’s place as a bridge builder in divided Israel.

Women’s football | 5,624 miles, 7 goals, 2 Portlands and 1 mole (U.S. v. Ukraine)

Portland, Oregon, Sept 2 | U.S. Soccer Federation officials in 2005 improvised to fill out a slate of impromptu summer friendlies. One of those was a game against Ukraine, assisted on its visit by a West Coast–based expatriate known as “the mole.”

Cinema | ‘Futbol Palestina 2006′

22 Apr 05 | Body searches, travel restrictions, arrests and martial law are not conditions usually associated with international football. These however have been familiar realities for members of the Palestinian national team. In spite of daunting odds, these players have succeeded in representing their nation. Futbol Palestina 2006, Nelson Soza and Marcelo Piña’s (left) film in progress, is a record of the players’ struggles, determination and pride. See also “In ‘Tiro Libre,’ Walls of Separation and Misunderstanding” (Apr 23) »