In his youth, Menahem Degani trained as a locksmith and served in the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary force in British Palestine. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, he joined Maccabi Tel Aviv and, by the 1950s, was a member of the Israeli national basketball team. His most notable international appearance came at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, where Israel finished joint-20th after losing both of its qualification matches against the Philippines and Greece. He also played in the 1953 European Championships, where his country placed fifth. Nationally, he did not retire from active competition until 1962. By career he worked for more than four decades as a physical education instructor and basketball coach at the high school level.
Israel