History of the Maccabiah Games

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The History of the

Games of the V Olympiad
.

History

1st Maccabiah
.
1st Maccabiah
; 1932. Such motorcyclists were instrumental in spreading the word about the upcoming Jewish Olympics across Europe.

At the end of the 19th century, Jews in Europe weren't allowed to take part in official athletic competitions and were forbidden membership in sports associations.

Jewish athletes who participated in the name of their country and the medals they won. This booklet was the origin of Yekutieli's idea: To help Jewish athletes participate in the Olympics.[2]

With the start of

Bar Kochba Rebellion.[3][5][4]

Coincidentally, at about the same time, the

was negative.[2][7][4][8] Chancellor refused to approve the Maccabiah.[8]

Approval of the Games & the Motorbikes Tour

High Commissioner of Mandatory Palestine, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope; image 1920–1940.

The Maccabiah, could not take place without the approval of the

British Palestine High Commissioner.[2] In the fall of 1931, Great Britain appointed Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope as the new High Commissioner of Palestine.[9] Wauchope, who showed great admiration to Zionist Palestine as well as the Jewish sports movement in general,[3] approved the Maccabiah on the condition that it also host Arab and official British Mandate athletes in addition to Jewish sportsmen.[9] The conditions were agreed on and the Maccabiada was scheduled for March 1932.[2][9]

With the news of Wauchope's approval of the games, two separate delegations of Jewish motor-bikers set off from Tel Aviv on a promotional tour to the Jewish communities across Europe, where the vast number of Jews were living at the time. In 1930, one delegation left Tel Aviv to Antwerp, Belgium.[5][2] A year later a second delegation left Tel Aviv for London. Yekutieli also toured with that delegation. On a second tour, May 10 through July 16, 1931, the intrepid band of Maccabiah bikers covered roughly 5,825 miles (9,375 kilometers) from Tel Aviv to Egypt and through a ship to many of the big cities in Europe including Nuremberg, Paris, and London. At the end of the tour, the group returned to Israel via Beirut.[2][5]

The Maccabiada

The Rishon LeZion delegation to the 1st Maccabiah; 1932.
Main article: 1st Maccabiah

The 1st Maccabiah opened on March 28, 1932.[10][9][3] The Games were nicknamed "White Horse Olympics" because Tel Aviv's Mayor Meir Dizengoff led a parade honoring the Games through the city streets while riding a white horse.[11][12] During these first games 390 sportsmen took part from 18 countries.[10][9] The games included everything from swimming, football, and handball, to various athletics. The games were regarded as a great success and planning for its successor were already on their way by the end of that year.[12]

Olympic Committee & 2nd Maccabiah

2nd Maccabiah
opening ceremony.
Main articles:
2nd Maccabiah

With the success of the first games, in 1933, with the help of Maccabi, Yekutieli founded the Palestine Olympic Committee which later became the

Israel Olympic Committee. Israel was formally invited to participate in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin - an invitation that was refused due to the growing fear of Nazi Germany
. Instead, Yekutieli decided to proceed with a second Maccabiah.

The second Maccabiah were held on from April 2 to 10, 1935 despite official opposition by the British Mandatory government.

British White Paper. The organizers were hoping the second Maccabiah would function as a way to allow more athletes to make Aliyah. During the second games over 1,300 athletes from 28 nations participated.[9]

3rd Maccabiah

Yosef Sprinzak, first Speaker of the Knesset, during the opening ceremony of the 3rd Maccabiah.
Main article:
3rd Maccabiah
Israeli postal stamp, 1950

Following the success of the 2nd Maccabiah, the 3rd Maccabiah was originally scheduled to be held in sprint of 1938.

1947–1949 Palestine war
, the games were postponed even further.

It was not until 1950 that the games were renewed. The 3rd Maccabah took place during the

1947–1949 Palestine war. During those games, many prominent Jewish athletes from Eastern Europe were conspicuously absent from - some were killed in the Holocaust and the remaining were banned from participating by the communist regimes of their countries. The Maccabiah opening ceremony took place in a new 50,000-seat stadium in Ramat Gan that was especially built for the games.[13][10]

4th Maccabiah to present day

Main articles:
19th Maccabiah

The fourth Maccabiah took place during Sukkot of 1953. The games ballooned to almost 2000 athletes from over 20 countries. Following the 4th Maccabiah, it was decided that the Maccabiah be held every four years like the Olympics to gain an olympic recognition. The games were then changed to take place quadrennially on the year following the Olympics - a change that's been in effect ever since.

The most recent games, the 21st Maccabiah took place between July 12 to 26, 2022.

The Maccabiah and the Aliyah

The Bulgarian athletes parading in the stadium at the 2nd Maccabiah Games opening ceremony, most of which stayed in Eretz Yisrael after the games.[14][15]
Main articles: Aliyah and Aliyah Bet

The early Maccabiah games that took place in 1932 and 1935 served as a way to illegally bring Jews to Israel and to effectively bypass the

limited Jewish immigration permitted by British authorities in the same period. It was for that reason, the 2nd Maccabiah was nicknamed "Aliyah Olympics".[14][15] Some notable delegations to the 2nd Maccabiah completely stayed in the land of Israel after the games. Most notable, the Bulgarian delegation that brought 350 Jews, athletes, their family members, and an orchestra, which arrived in Jaffa Port, returned to Sofia, Bulgaria empty,[14][15] sending only their equipment back.[9] It is one of the reasons the British authority at the time refused to allow the 3rd Maccabiah to take place in the spring of 1938. The tradition of making an Aliyah continued onward during the 1950s with the 3rd and 4th Maccabiah games. Today, Jews who want to make Aliyah to Israel often do so during the Maccabiah.[16][17]

References

  1. ISBN 9780739119600
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h "The Maccabiah Story". Maccabi World Union. Archived from the original on October 8, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781934527245
    .
  4. ^ a b c d State of Israel - Israel Ministry of Education and Sport. "Maccabiah" (in Hebrew). Israel Ministry of Education and Sport - South Region. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  5. ^ a b c "THE MACCABIAH GAMES". International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  6. ^ "Maccabiah - history". Maccabiah USA. Archived from the original on November 16, 2007. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  7. doi:10.1080/00263209308700959
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 9781845110307
    . Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  9. ^
    ISBN 9781598843019
    .
  10. ^ a b c Garber, Leah (July 15, 2013). "The Maccabiah Is an Expression of Jewish Pride". Jewish Community Centers of North America. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  11. ^ "Jews in Sports: The Maccabiah Games". American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  12. ^ a b "A Pacifist and Transnational Movements". Mémorial de la Shoah. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  13. ^ a b "Third Maccabiah Games". Center for Israel Education. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  14. ^ a b c Klein, Steven (June 30, 2013). "2nd Maccabiah (1935): The 'Aliyah Olympics'". Haaretz. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  15. ^ a b c נתן רועי (August 26, 2013). "Little-known Maccabiah moments - revealed!". Jewish Agency for Israel. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  16. ^ "2013 Maccabiah Games - The Jewish Olympics". Chess News. July 24, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  17. ^ Jspace Staff (March 13, 2013). "19th Maccabiah Games Announced, Aly Raisman Special Guest". Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2014.

External links

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