Aner Levron grew up in a Galilee kibbutz, shaping his values of community and basketball. With German roots enabling a European career, he played in seventeen cities before settling in Fribourg as an assistant coach. He guides players while carrying the pain of Israel’s recent tragedies and hoping for peace.
He comes from a place where childhood isn’t bought, it is breathed. A place where people walk barefoot, where the wind smells of earth, where trees are not scenery but companions. Where every house has a basketball hoop above the door. This place is the Hulata kibbutz in the Upper Galilee, nestled between hills, rivers, and the gentle belief that community can, perhaps, protect the world.
Aner Levron was born there as one is born in a tale: surrounded, guided, lifted by the collective. “A paradise for a child,” he says. A paradise that shaped his backbone: belonging, simplicity, effort, solidarity. And a basketball. The young man could emulate his father Rami who was a great basketball player too. This sport was made for the Levrons, Aner’s younger sister Inbar being also a pro baller with Hapoel Kfar Saba. Aner is 41 years old and is assistant coach for Thibaut Denis. He travelled for 19 years around Europe, mainly Germany, but also Austria and Italy to settle down in Switzerland since 2019 and in Fribourg since 2024.
German Roots, A Door to the World
His story does not begin in Israel alone. It stretches further, toward another land, colder, wounded: Germany. His grandparents were born there, before History forced their steps onto another path. From that legacy came a possibility: a German passport, a second nationality, a second chance.
When the urge to discover the world grew too strong, the choice became obvious:
leave, play, learn, lose yourself, find yourself again. “I saw the light,” he recalls, smiling, thinking back to a family trip at seventeen, Italy, Switzerland, France. It was the beginning. The spark.
Europe’s Roads: Dribbles and Borders
In 2008, Aner arrived in Germany. Then he packed again. And again. Thüringen, Frankfurt, Salzburg, the north, the east, the south. Then Palermo, Mediterranean light, a taste of home, the final stop of a career that began in a kibbutz gym and unfolded through seventeen European cities. 17 cities as player and as a coach !
He was not the star dreaming of the German national team. He was something else:
a worker, a creator of balance, a player who made others better. One night in Germany, he scored 27 points, hit 11 out of 11 free throws, and as he left the court with the MVP beer in his hand, he asked himself:
— How did I not get a contract earlier?
That night, he was not Jewish, not Israeli, not a foreigner. He was simply celebrated. “A symbolic victory,” he says. An intimate reconciliation with a history he hadn’t chosen, yet carried in his blood.
Fribourg: The Gym, the Mountains, the Family
Since his coming to Switzerland, Aner has been an assistant coach alongside Thibault Petit with Fribourg Olympic, the most decorated club in Switzerland. He speaks of the place like one speaks of a refuge: a gym open from dawn, committed players, a tightly knit staff.
His philosophy? A discipline without disguise, an affection that never betrays.“Tough love,” he explains. Strict in expectations, generous in presence. The players know: with him, there is no cheating. But he picks up the phone at midnight. He is the intermediary, the bridge and he tells players what they do not dare say.
He tells the head coach what must be said. He softens, he sharpens, he eases, he reassures. Depending on the moment. Depending on the need. A big brother. Sometimes a father. Within the club, he has lived moments of raw intensity:
a Europe Cup quarter‑final in Thessaloniki, ten thousand spectators, the roar of an entire arena, the vibration rising through the floorboards.
“I still get goosebumps,” he confides.
Israel, Wounds, and the Future
And then there is the other story, the one that burns: the war, Gaza, the attacks of October 7, the kibbutzim struck. For someone who grew up in a kibbutz, it was unthinkable. “I felt as if my own home had been hit,” he says. Between pain and hope, he clings to one fragile but stubborn certainty: peace must return. Because without it, no child of a kibbutz will walk barefoot in safety again.
One never truly knows where the road leads when one begins life with a basketball. You cross borders, languages, gymnasiums, accents, defeats, bursts of light.The world begins to turn around an orange sphere.
For Aner Levron, the journey is not over, it really only started as an assistant coach or maybe a head coach position in the future. He continues to teach, to learn, to love the game that gave him an entire life. From a kibbutz to Fribourg, the way one takes a long road. And now, in the home of double cream of Gruyère or the Cuchaule, Aner continues his work helping others grow, helping his head coach Thibault Petit with his staff mate Besserat Temelso and a whole club to win titles. And as we all know, Fribourg Olympic does it quite well.
To listen to the interview with Aner, click here.
Suississimo 