He was charging toward pro hockey until he switched goals 

Photos: Levi Lehman Film, Personal archives

There was only one reason that Frank Horowitz, who knew close to nothing about Judaism, went to Israel on Birthright in 2016 — to take advantage of an opportunity to snag cheap airline tickets to Europe, the destination he had his heart set on visiting over his summer break. But landing in Tel Aviv triggered a chain of events that forced the aspiring pro hockey player to ultimately redefine the word “goal”

AT21 months, the average toddler is learning how to run and walk up a staircase, but little Frank Horowitz was anything but average. While the local ice-skating rink near his Beverly Hills, California home only provided instruction to kids ages two and up, Horowitz had already started clamoring for ice time even before his second birthday, loudly demanding, “Give me skates!” After just two laps around the rink with a training walker, Horowitz was zipping around the ice on single-bladed skates like he was born to glide effortlessly over its slick surface.

Tall and soft-spoken, today Horowitz works in private equity real estate and gives a weekly chaburah in his Pico-Robertson apartment on the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. He is clearly a deep thinker and has an undeniable air of refinement, hardly the person you would expect to have been on track to play professional hockey, where body slamming and foul language both seem to be very much part of the game.

And yet, that was exactly the trajectory of Frank Horowitz’s life for many years, practically from when he hit the ice for the first time before his second birthday. Yet despite his promising future in the sport, he decided to swap his helmet for a black yarmulke and completely redefine his life.

Horowitz grew up in a Los Angeles that was obsessed with hockey, a love that blossomed when Wayne Gretzky, considered to be the best player of all time, joined the L.A. Kings in 1988. While Horowitz’s parents hadn’t been together from the time he was born, his father had grown up playing pond hockey in Boston, and he pushed to get his son on skates as early as possible. Clearly a natural on the ice, Horowitz had a stick in his hand by the time he was four, and it soon became clear that he didn’t just love hockey, he had real talent for the game.

Frank continued to play hockey as a student at Beverly Vista, a local public school, the sport becoming the center of his social life as well. The fact that none of his friends were Jewish wasn’t a problem for Horowitz, who grew up knowing little about Yiddishkeit, although an uncle said that the family were descendants of a very famous rabbi, but whose name didn’t really matter much at that point in his life. (Horowitz later discovered that the famous relative was Rabi Yeshayahu HaLevi Horowitz, the Shelah Hakadosh). Horowitz’s entire existence was school and hockey, and by the time he was 12 he was on an exclusive team that drew young players from all over who had come to L.A. to develop their skills, with the hopes of one day being able to play professionally.

“We were one of the top five hockey teams in the country for 12- and 13-year-olds,” Horowitz says. “There were five kids on my team from Alaska and three from Canada. But after that, everyone leaves and goes to play in Canada, Minnesota, or back East, where the weather is colder.”

As a child of divorce, life wasn’t always easy for Horowitz, and hockey became his refuge.

“More than I liked hockey, it was something I was good at and got respect for,” says Horowitz. “People thought it was cool, I enjoyed scoring goals, and the ice was a place where I could express myself and be alone with myself in a healthy way. It was an escape, but a healthy one.”

Hockey took priority over education for members of the team, and as an eighth grader, Horowitz missed 85 days of the school year to play hockey. With top players already being groomed for professional play before they hit their teenage years, many are home-schooled or take online classes while getting in maximum rink time in Canada, and it isn’t uncommon for talented kids to give up on school by age 15 or 16. But choosing a high school presented certain dilemmas for Horowitz.

“My parents were Jewish enough to think that an education was somewhat important, and they weren’t going to have a kid who flunked out of middle school and high school,” he says. “They gave me a choice: I could either drop hockey, or go to a school where I could learn and also play.”

Horowitz considered multiple schools with highly regarded hockey programs. Minnesota’s Shattuck-St. Mary’s looked promising at first, but the fact that it was a hardcore Catholic school was a deal-breaker for his father, who insisted that it was no place for a Jewish boy, even a non-practicing one. Instead, Horowitz settled on a Connecticut prep school, which, while also Catholic, placed less of an emphasis religion.

Horowitz was in one of the best hockey schools in the United States, immersed in a culture of the sport he loved, and had a rink located right outside his door. And yet, it didn’t take him long to realize that something was off. He loved hockey and was a good player, but couldn’t shake the feeling that, although he had some friends, somehow he was different.

Horowitz’s niggling sense that there had to be more to life than hockey began surfacing long before his high school years. As an only child, he spent a lot of time on his own, and when he wasn’t in school or playing hockey, his thoughts often turned to the idea that there had to be a Creator in this world. Seeing the water lap up to the shore from L.A.’s Pacific Coast Highway would leave him wondering how the waves knew to stop when they hit the beach, and what power made the tides come in day after day. He once asked the father who was driving that day’s hockey carpool if there was more to life than shooting a puck around on the ice, and what was mankind’s purpose on this planet. But instead of getting answers, his teammate’s father turned up the volume on the car radio and told him to stop asking ridiculous questions.

There were other incidents that also made it clear to Horowitz that the camaraderie he shared with his teammates had its limits. As a ten-year-old, he was on a track that gave young players the opportunity to vie for a spot on a national hockey team. Frank was talented enough that making the cut seemed like a real possibility, until a scout who was standing next to his father pointed him out on the ice, completely unaware of the familial relationship.

“He’s really good,” said the scout, who knew the boy’s last name was Horowitz. “But we’re not going to take a Jew.”