NCAA basketball / Final Four / March Madness hits Israel

America is still immersed in March Madness, though it's already April. Such is the nation's fascination with college basketball's championship tournament, which has evolved over the years into a pop culture phenomenon.

The three-week long, 65-team large hoops festival, which rivals the biggest events on the U.S. sporting calendar, ends this weekend. College basketball's biggest party will culminate as finalists North Carolina, Connecticut, Michigan State and Villanova battle it out in Detroit - providing the beleaguered auto-industry town with a reason to cheer.

The action on the court generates plenty of excitement off the court as well and has developed a new lexicon all of its own.

The buildup begins during the course of the regular season and has spawned a new pseudo-science called bracketology, which defines which teams are in, which are out and who is "on the bubble."

The tournament field is finalized on Selection Sunday, four days before the games begin, when the participants and the bracketed schedule are announced. Then the real craziness begins.

Office pools are hastily organized in work places throughout America and it seems every John Q. Worker wants in on the action.

Office secretaries spend time analyzing the relative strengths of schools from Alcorn St. to Xavier and all the other obscure teams, mid-majors and major majors in between. It requires a little knowledge and a lot of guesswork to fill in those brackets and get those choices in during those two or three days.

America's most powerful basketball fan, President Barack Obama, a former high school player and certified basketball junkie, filled out his own bracket on ESPN in front of the nation. He picked North Carolina to win it all, so Obama still has a piece of the action, even if his other Final Four picks have already been eliminated.

Some Americans now living in Israel participate in tournament pools from here. Invariably they were bitten by the March Madness bug during their formative years in America and continued the practice after immigrating.

According to Gedalia Werblowsky, 34, a high-tech worker who lives in Modi'in, "it's a lot easier to be in tournament pools in Israel these days because of the Internet. Anyone can sign on or organize a pool through ESPN."

In the past Werblowsky has organized pools and has participated in others. This year he is hedging his bets by joining in five different pools.

Rabbi Elli Fischer, a 32-year-old translator from Baltimore who also settled in Modi'in, has been operating a tournament for the past three years.

"I organized it through Yahoo and it involves 15 friends from the Modi'in area." Fischer's fondest memories of tournament pools are from his days as a Jewish educator in the U.S. "I was teaching Talmud in a Jewish high school, and entered a pool that one of my students organized. It's the only time I ever won a pool but I won over my students by doing so."

And what does the winner get here? It's usually pride and a little money. While it takes NIS 20 to join Fisher's pool, the ones run by Kenny Sachs, also of Modi'in, cost NIS 50 to enter.

"I've got four in one pool and seven in another," says Sachs, who has been running pools for 15 years since eighth grade. "I've never even looked at the prizes," he said, "but I'm doing really well this year."