JERUSALEM – When New Jersey soccer legend Spencer Rockman arrived in Israel, he didn't know how to say "run," "kick," or "score" in Hebrew.

But that didn't stop him from teaching soccer to 600 Israeli children in 30 mini-camp clinics in just two weeks in July.

When the young and veteran players got on the field, they spoke an international tongue: the language of soccer.

Rockman has taught soccer to thousands of children in New Jersey since he started his first soccer clinic off the Good Humor ice cream truck he drove in 1972. Since then, the 56-year-old Edison resident has run successful summer camps in Metuchen, where he was raised.

But even though Rockman's camps are called Rover's International Soccer Camps, they weren't truly international until Rockman decided during the Second Lebanon War last summer that he had to come to Israel and run soccer camps in the Jewish state.

"I learned about Beersheva in the Torah portion," recalled Rockman, who is a member of Etz Ahaim synagogue in Highland Park. He said he asked the congregation's Rabbi David Bassous about Beersheva, "and he said that was where Abraham first camped. At that moment, I knew I was called to Beersheva to do a camp for children. When you hear the calling, you go."

Rockman held soccer camps throughout Beersheva, in Ashkelon, at several kibbutzim, and in the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County's Jewish Agency Partnership 2000 sister community of Arad in the Negev. Most of the camps were devoted to Israeli children from underprivileged and underserved populations, including young Ethiopian immigrants in Arad.

No matter where he goes, Rockman said, he teaches his philosophy of soccer. It is a set of values he has spread over a career in which he has been involved in every aspect of the sport and has pioneered many soccer initiatives for everyone from young children to Olympic athletes.

His summer camps, he said, "are consistent and perpetuate the philosophy of enjoying the game, no matter what the ability of the kids, whether they are in New Jersey or Beersheva. I make the game a metaphor to focus on teaching skills and values. The program focuses on inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment for life lessons with an emphasis on unity."

While that message has a universal feel to it in New Jersey, in Israel Rockman made the summer camps more Jewish. The T-shirts he gave out to the children read, "Beersheva and Beyond Adventure Camp: Skills, Values, and Mitzvot."

"The emotions I felt here could only be felt in Israel, where the supernatura
is natural," said Spencer Rockman, photographed with one of his younger students.

Inspired by the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who handed out dollars to visitors to give to charity, at the end of each soccer session, Rockman gave each child a shekel. They in turn put it in a tzedaka box to help those even less privileged than they are, such as children with special needs. Rockman said it made the children feel empowered.

"Because of what they don't have, these kids' appreciation is so high," Rockman said. "The Torah is a blueprint for life, so we apply its values to the game. Soccer, like everything else, relates to the Torah."

Rockman described his experience in Israel as the most emotional two weeks of his life. He had organized charity events before in New Jersey for children with cancer and blood disorders, but this was his first time organizing camps in Israel.

Rockman also organized a June 17 federation-sponsored event called Kicks For Katif. The event raised $4,000 to help the Middlesex federation fund the building of a youth center in the Israeli town of Nitzan for Jewish evacuees from the Gaza Strip's Gush Katif bloc of settlements. Eighty people "kicked for Katif" at the event.

"The emotions I felt here I could only feel in the Land of Israel, where the supernatural is natural and one miracle leads to another," Rockman said. "Soccer works, no matter whether you are in Scotch Plains, Beersheva, or Arad. I'm a messenger, transcending borders, culture, and language.

"People didn't speak English, but it happened and it was all from the heart. The messages transcended and, most importantly, they reached the kids."