Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, the squash courts at the Raanana club echo with the thwack of rubber against plaster. But this is no ordinary league. The players here are all well past eighty, with two proudly into their nineties — and not just shuffling around for nostalgia's sake. They're still hitting, chasing, lunging and occasionally wheezing their way through rallies that would exhaust players half their age. If you want a precedent for longevity, here it is: ninety-year-olds setting the bar for octogenarians.
And let's not forget the hardware. At least two players stride onto the court with total hip replacements. The surgeons may have installed titanium, but the men insist it has only improved their backhand. In a way, they're walking—well, running—advertisements for orthopedic progress. "You think Jona Barrington lasted long? Try playing on spare parts!" one of them jokes, mid-rally, before putting away a gentle drop shot.
But don't expect these veterans to keep score the way the professionals do. No, they've come up with a new system: calories instead of points. Forget love, hand-out, stroke. Here it's: kugel, brisket, rugelach. Every rally shaves a few bites of guilt off last night's dinner. "I won today," one boasts, "because my watch says I burned 320 calories. That's half a cheesecake!"
Between games, the real competition begins: politics. Leaning on their racquets like parliamentary canes, they argue about the government, the economy and whether the grandkids will ever come back to orthodoxy. One insists the country is doomed; another insists it always was. These debates last longer than the rallies, but no one calls "time." This is squash as Talmud study — layered, contentious, hilarious.
On the court, however, a remarkable transformation occurs. Players who once thrived on aggression are now paragons of politeness. A ball skims the line? "Yours." A shot too hard? "Sorry." A missed swing? "Take it again." Squash, traditionally a game of elimination, has been reimagined as a game of inclusion. No one's trying to knock the other out. The goal now is to keep the rally alive as long as possible, because every shot prolongs both the game and, in a way, life itself.
Their secret weapon is the red dot ball. Bouncier, heavier, more forgiving. Younger players dismiss it as a "training ball," but these elders embrace it as a lifeline. With red dots, rallies stretch on, hearts pump steadily and laughter fills the pauses. "We love the red dots," one nonagenarian says, "because at our age, the only thing that should be fast is the ambulance."
To outsiders, squash still carries its reputation: brutal, unforgiving, too intense for the faint of heart. But this group has turned it into something else entirely — a ritual of endurance, friendship and sheer stubbornness. Their longevity is not about trophies; it's about showing up, three times a week, racquet in hand, to face down age itself.
Ask them their secret and they'll shrug. Is it the discipline? The calorie-counting? The titanium hips? Or maybe it's simply the arguing — keeping the blood pressure high enough to remind them they're alive. Whatever the reason, they've made squash into the ultimate longevity sport, a sanctuary where survival itself becomes the prize.
And when two ninety-year-olds are still out there, setting the pace, the rest of the group has no excuse. Nu, if they can play, so can you. Points may fade, knees may creak, but as long as the red and yellow dots keep bouncing, life — and laughter — goes on.