Max Birbraer

Maxim Birbraer ( born December 15, 1980) is a Kazakhstan-born Israeli former professional ice hockey forward. Birbraer is Jewish and has played for the Israel national ice hockey team.

Playing career
Birbraer was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, where he lived until the age of 14, and is Jewish. His family lived under a non-Jewish sounding surname in those years due to severe local anti-Semitism, and he wasn't told that he was Jewish until his parents decided to move to Israel. Although he had played schoolboy hockey in Russia, he assumed that he would have to give up the ice when he was 14 and his family immigrated to Israel, until he discovered an indoor rink in Tel Aviv where he played in a junior league. He had lived in Israel for only 8 months when his coach, Paul Rosen, persuaded him to try out for a Canadian league with the result that he spent 2 years playing Tier 2 hockey in Ontario, where Rosen was his legal guardian. He then joined the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League.

He was the only Israeli national ever to be drafted by a NHL team when he was drafted 67th overall in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft by the New Jersey Devils. Despite this, he never played in the NHL, instead spending three seasons with their American Hockey League affiliate, the Albany River Rats. In 2006, Birbraer signed with the Cardiff Devils of the Elite Ice Hockey League, and played with the team for 7 years. Birbraer signed with the Telford Tigers in 2014.