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Aug. 16, 2013
Team Canada at Maccabiah
Israel hosts athletes from 78 countries at 19th annual games.
BEN G. FRANK
It’s over! By now the men and women of Maccabi Canada have returned home from the 19th Maccabiah games in Israel, which came to a close with a dance party in Haifa on July 29. Undoubtedly, as the athletes and delegates begin to plan for the fall semester on campus or heading back to work, they are telling their families not only of the wins and losses, but most of all, the experiences that come from an athletic competition the size of the Maccabiah, with about 8,000 participants from 78 lands.
More than 600 athletes and coaches represented Maccabi Canada, the largest team the country has ever sent to compete in Israel. And it was truly a national team, Tommy Bacher, president of Maccabi Canada told the Independent, including about 45 from the Vancouver area.
Canadians brought home 72 medals, 22 of which were gold. They scored wins in such sports as hockey, golf, swimming, softball and track and others competitions, and walked away with gold medals in both the Women’s Open (Sasha Gollish) and masters Maccabi Woman event (Judy Snider), which is based on four separate endurance competitions in a one-week period with all times combined. A first for Canada was the magnificent win in the open Men’s Golf Championship; a gold medal obtained by Ben Silverman. Sherry Buller from Vancouver won a silver medal in the women’s 35-and-over tennis single and a gold medal in the mixed doubles tennis.
The games are not all about medals, however. “It’s about the experience, the experience of a lifetime,” participants repeated when asked to relate their experience. Maccabiah games are all about the bonding, they insisted.
“It’s rare for adults [to have] bonding experiences of this depth once people graduate from college,” said Bob Litwin of Long Island, N.Y. “By sharing this common experience of eating together, staying together, playing together, supporting each other, we created bonds for the rest of our lives.” Litwin won a gold medal in tennis for the 65-plus division for the United States.
The social side of the games does not to take away from the efforts the athletes expend to compete and to win. Up north on the Lebanese border in Metullah, where the Canadian and U.S. junior ice hockey team clashed in an ice rink, Canada won a nail-biting contest, 3-2 for the gold.
At Kibbutz Yiron, spectators watched the road race of cyclists and saw the proud faces of those who finished the grueling 48-mile ride up and down those northern mountains along the border with Lebanon. After the award ceremonies, this Upper Galilee kibbutz hosted all the cyclists and guests to a hearty lunch and comradeship flourished as Americans traded shirts with Canadians.
Chances are that if each member of the Canadian team were asked to vote on one of the most significant events of this year’s Maccabiah games, one of the most significant would certainly be the opening ceremonies. Picture thousands marching into the new Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem greeted by more than 30,000 cheering, flag-waving spectators, friends and family from Israel and around the world. Several athlete and delegate participants expressed similar sentiments: “We were, for those 20 minutes of circling the stadium, superstars.”
Watching from the stands, Canadian participants could be seen reaching up to give high-fives to spectators from back home in Canada who occupied front-row seats. Many stopped right on the track itself and grabbed a few of their buddies for a prime photo op – there were only smiles on the faces of these athletes. They were feeling, in the words again of one of the marchers, “the love and admiration of those in the audience. It was an experience to remember for a lifetime.”
Each of the 78 nation delegations was greeted as if it was each ticketholder’s native land. Jewish athletes from countries large and small, from Hong Kong, Uzbekistan, Guatemala and Slovenia, marched as proudly as the large contingents of South Africa, Brazil and France. (Mongolia had one member, Moldova, two.)
Witnessing the opening evening, one could say it was one-quarter party, one-quarter entertainment, one-quarter ceremony and one-quarter message. The Israeli hosts of the Maccabiah put on a show of song and dance, including some admirable dance numbers, as well as renditions from some of Israel’s top entertainers.
The ceremony was broadcast live on Israel’s Channel 1 and, by the time the several-hour program ended, the Jerusalem sky was lit up with fireworks. At times, members of the crowd would wave the blue-and-white Israeli flags, adding more festive color to the show, and stick- and ring-lights were lit at the beginning of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
While the parade around the stadium roused the crowd, however, the opportunity of getting a message across to the Diaspora through the athletes here, as well as to the world, was not missed, among them, that Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel. Greetings and speeches from the top leaders in Israel were offered, including President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat and officials of Maccabi World Union.
There were numerous dramatic moments throughout the evening. Athletes and referees took their oaths; Yizkor was intoned by track-and-field star Esther Roth-Shanamorov, mourning the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of her fellow Israeli athletes, including the man who was her coach. Dramatic indeed was the entry of the torchbearers and the lighting of the Maccabiah flame, by Aly Raisman, U.S. Olympic gold medal winner who has spoken publicly about the tragedy at Munich.
One aspect of the Maccabiah could not be overlooked. While Israel fielded the largest delegation – about 2,000 people – 6,000 participants were from the Diaspora. Traveling around Israel, one could spy young and senior athletes in restaurants, such as Suzana and Hakovshim in Tel Aviv, and in that city’s famous market, Shuk HaCarmel. Popular hangouts were the cafés and Aroma espresso bars. Athletes were encouraged to engage everyday Israelis, and they journeyed from Masada to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, from the beaches and nightlife of Tel Aviv to the majestic view from Haifa’s Mt. Carmel, from the kibbutzim in the north to the towns in the south.
With the games finished, Bacher, a Toronto physician who himself won a silver medal in softball for Maccabi Canada back in 1985, looked ahead to the next Maccabiah for Maccabi Canada. The team raised its funds from corporations and individual donors, and plans to continue to provide Canadian Jewish youth with the values of a healthy life style and to give them a sense of “Jewish pride in themselves for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Rabbi Dan Greyber might agree with Bacher. The U.S. spiritual leader spoke for all the Maccabiah teams when he said, “My heart is filled with hope when I think about how much love and strength our team will bring to Israel, the Jewish people and the world in the years to come.” In Hebrew, he added, “We don’t ever really say goodbye, we say ‘see you again,’ which in Hebrew is l’hitraot.”
Ben G. Frank, travel writer and journalist, is the author of Klara’s Journey, A Novel (Marion Street Press) and The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti and Beyond (Globe Pequot Press). His blog, I Travel the World, can be found at bengfrank.blogspot.com, or connect with him on Twitter, @bengfrank.
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