George Eisen. Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport. Editor: Karen Christensen & David Levinson, Volume 3, Berkshire Publishing, 2005.
As with the emergence of other regional sports events in other parts of the world during the first decade of the twentieth century, the idea of organizing Olympic-style competitions for Jewish athletes from around the world was influenced by the Olympic idea. Thus, simultaneously with the organization of the Far Eastern Olympic Games by Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) missionaries in China, Japan, and the Philippines, a Jewish Olympic movement developed in Europe. However, whereas the YMCA movement extolled the virtues of “muscular Christianity,” the Jewish movement (Judische Turnerschaft und Sportbewegung—later called “Maccabi”) adopted the curiously similar words of a Hungarian Zionist (referring to an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel), Max Nordau, extolling the virtues of muskel Judentum (muscular Judaism).
In 1911 an article appeared in the Judische Turnzeitung, the journal of the rapidly expanding Jewish gymnastic and sports movement. Fritz Abraham, a German Zionist who was strongly influenced by English sports, proposed a gathering of Jewish gymnasts and sportsmen in an Olympic-style competition. “If we believe at all in the victory of our national idea,” he wrote, “then we also should hope to organize a Jewish-national Olympiad.” He further stated that, “The world will perhaps become aware of how many outstanding athletes there are among us. Jews still help to build the fame of foreign nations while they fail to recognize their own nationality. … If we could only show how many Jewish nationalists participated in sports during the years 1903-1909, then perhaps in 1913 an athletic meeting at the 11th Zionist Congress might offer the promise of our own all-Jewish Olympic Games.”
Although World War I scuttled his innovative idea, by 1924 Gustav Spiegler, an Austrian Maccabi leader who was obviously influenced by the 1924 Olympic Games, resurrected it with a twist. In a column in Der Makkabi, the organ of the Maccabi sports movement, he recommended, “Before we go to the world Olympics, we should first establish a personal selection process and that is what the Jewish Olympic festival should be all about.” He added later that the games should be held in Israel and that they should also include a seminar-style academy where “Jewish scholars from all over the world … would lecture during the festival.”
Jewish Olympiads
Spiegler’s idea was revolutionary because of two elements. One element advocated the preparation of Israel, representing Palestine, to take part in the world Olympic movement. The other element sought to establish, simultaneously, a parallel Jewish Olympic festival. “This constant aim of bringing our athletes into the different Olympiads,” the Israeli sports functionary Yoseph Yekutieli wrote some years later, “created the idea of world Jewish Olympiads which would give to the Jewish youth a push forward and would serve to guide us in … preparing for international competitions.”
As a quadrennial athletic celebration, the Maccabiah Games are held a year after the Olympic Games. Its name, “Maccabiah,” alludes to the glorious past of the famed Maccabi revolt during the second century BCE. Although philosophically the Olympic movement has obviously influenced the inception of the Maccabiah idea, the Maccabiah Games have always transcended the competitiveness that is so emphasized by the Olympics. Rather, the Maccabiah Games serve as a vehicle for Jewish national ideals such as immigration and love of Israel. Indeed, the stated aim of the games is not to strive for world records or to compete with the international Olympic movement, but rather to attract the largest possible number of Jewish athletes, officials, spectators, and tourists to Israel from around the world.
Since the first Maccabiah Games in 1932, fifteen additional games have been held in Tel Aviv. Utilizing the propaganda benefits of these games, the games have never repudiated their nationalistic overtone.They have created an important milestone in the evolution of Zionist recognition of the role of sports in its national aspirations of building a new society. Zionism proved the maxim that to be genuine, a revolution must radically alter a culture. Zionists wanted to create a broad national community by implementing a modern revolution by a movement that prided itself on being a movement of youth. This movement was followed by a redefinition of the role of men and women in Jewish society and by creation of a new body image. Zionist aspirations needed a physical component to their political platform as much for ideological purposes as humanitarian ones. Zionists had to resort to a nationalistic formula of “inventing a nation.” The ideological basis for this daunting task was the belief that in order to erase the anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews, one must create a “new Jewish man and woman”—cleansed by physical toil and baptized by robust physical activity.
During their eight decades the Maccabiah Games have evolved through three stages that have been influenced by both political and psychological factors: (1) the Summer and Winter games during the interwar years, (2) the founding of Israel, and (3) the fall of the Soviet Union. During these decades the games have also grown into one of the largest Olympic-style gatherings of the twentieth-first century. The first period of the Maccabiah Games, between the two world wars, included two Summer games (1932 and 1935) and two Winter games (1933 and 1935). These games reflected the complex interaction between the fledgling Jewish community in Palestine, the British mandate whose consent was crucial for the organization of the games, and the rising anti-Semitism in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Thus, the first two Summer games were held in Tel Aviv under the tutelage of the British high commissioners. Nevertheless, the Zionist establishment openly used the pretext of the games to smuggle in thousands of illegal immigrants. The two Winter games were held in and supported in some degree by Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The founding of Israel gave new impetus to recast the philosophical foundation of the games. Starting in 1950 the games included an ever-increasing number of athletes from all over the world. Such sports as chess, judo, karate, lawn bowling, squash, ten-pin bowling, softball, field hockey, badminton, golf, and even bridge and backgammon were added to subsequent games. The addition of Masters Maccabiah (for people more than thirty-five years old) and Junior Maccabiah (for youth) and regional games gave more opportunities for inclusion of the entire Jewish community from all over the world, shaping the emerging image of the games to be as much as a cultural and educational celebration as a top-level athletic competition. The unabashedly ideological foundation of the Maccabiah Games reflected this Zionist strategy of inclusion. The Maccabiah ideology actively encouraged participation over records. Sports such as tennis, basketball, table tennis, and water polo for women, for example, were already adopted for the program of the second Maccabiah Games. As a statement supporting women’s equality, one of the most memorable milestones of the Maccabiah Games took place in 1965 as the first woman, Debbie Marcus, held high the Maccabiah torch in the Maccabiah Stadium in Ramat Gan, in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, and lit the Maccabiah flame.
Soviet Collapse
One of the most significant historical moments, ushering in a dramatic change in the Maccabiah Games, was the collapse of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. The amazing speed with which many Maccabi clubs in central and eastern Europe, disbanded by Communist authorities, were reestablished shows the movement’s influence over Jewish life. The restoration of the connection between these clubs and Israel brought many world-caliber Jewish athletes from eastern and central Europe to the Maccabiah Games. For example, the famed Polgar sisters from Hungary, who were among the most celebrated chess players in the world, were invited to participate.
The evolution of the Maccabiah Games also brought a rapid expansion of regional Maccabiah Games, in which a cross-section of the Jewish community could participate in ever-increasing numbers. Thus, athletic festivals are held in individual countries as well as in North America, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.