When a group of 10 major league players arrived in Israel in early January, the landed with at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv with wives, fiancées, parents, friends, supporters…and a well-equipped camera crew of five people.

“Heading Home” is the working title of the film that the crew was dispatched to make, as they followed these players around Israel and documented them, especially those in Israel for the first time, discovering the joys of this little Middle Eastern paradise. The initiative was Jonathan Mayo’s. The MLBPipeline.com reporter had been percolating this idea along with film maker Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films. Both were part of the crew that followed the group’s every move from land and from the air, with the help of a drone for those especially scenic shots.

“I’ve always been very interested in knowing who the Jews in baseball are, from the time I was 11 or 12-years-old,” says Mayo. “When Team Israel was created, I felt like it was a combination of two of my wonderful worlds. The idea of making a film following these players in Israel seemed like a dream project.”

Mayo got together with Newberger and his team and turned the dream into a reality.

“Jeremy and I have known each other for more than 30 years, having gone to Jewish sleepaway camp together,” said Mayo, pictured right interviewing Ty Kelly in Israel. “We’d been trying to find a project to work together on and we realized immediately that ‘Heading Home’ was it. I’m not a filmmaker, so getting Ironbound Films, with Jeremy, Seth Kramer and Daniel A. Miller, on board was a no-brainer.”

A first attempt to get a group of MLB players to Israel and to get the movie made in 2015 didn’t get off the ground. After Team Israel won its qualifier for the WBC in Brooklyn in September last year, real estate developer, founder of the Online Jewish Baseball Museum and friend of Israel Baseball Jeff Aeder took the initiative to put together a trip for 10 of the players, and the Ironbound Films crew was invited along. “Heading Home” was going to be made.

“About a month’s worth of touring was crammed into six days!” Mayo exclaimed. “But it was simply amazing. From serious discussions about the country’s history, to the playful bonding on the bus, this group of Jewish ballplayers really embraced being ambassadors of baseball for Israel.”

Very soon into the trip, it was clear to the film makers that the story’s final scene was not in Jerusalem, but at the WBC tournament itself. “The players walked up to a graffiti artists’ rendering of Sandy Koufax in a Tel Aviv alleyway and had what I can only describe as a religious experience,” notes Jeremy. “Incredible moments like that, where they were faced with the duality of being American Jews and Israel’s baseball ambassadors made me intrigued to see them complete their journey on the world stage in Seoul, South Korea for the first round of the WBC in March.”

Taking a film crew to yet another continent is an expensive business, and to this end, the group of film makers set up a Kickstarter campaign to try to raise funds to get themselves, and a lot of equipment, to Seoul. They’ve reached out to Jewish celebrities in the Twittersphere, and asked them to put in a good word. Some of them have even listened. West Wing alum Richard Schiff (who played Toby Ziegler on the show) lamented on Twitter that Hank Greenberg would have loved to play for Israel. New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon became the projects’ largest backer.

With only days to go for the campaign to hit its target, the crew’s trip to Korea still hangs in the balance, but they are optimistic as they continue to encourage Jewish baseball fans every to back this unique cinematic venture.

“When I was a kid, we often would buy trees to plant in Israel as a means of showing support,” Mayo said. “That’s still cool, but now you can support a film about baseball and Israel as well!”