JTA — One day last year, when she was on a break from playing basketball at a Jewish community center, Sara Levenson came upon a room full of people playing video games.
She joined in on a lark and soon found herself drawn into a game called Rocket League, a video game, or “esport,” where cars play soccer against each other, occasionally colliding. Like most members of Gen Z, Sara, 14, has been playing video games for years, first on her older brother’s Xbox console, then on her own. She also plays the popular shooting game Fortnite on her computer.
A few months ago, with most in-person basketball (and other sports) on hold due to the pandemic, Sara started playing in a Jewish video game league called Lost Tribe Esports, and recently found herself going deep in a Rocket League tournament on a team with a friend she’s met only virtually — in fact, through…
