This past week saw the opening of the Maccabiah Games here in Jerusalem. Flamboyantly conceived by its originators as the "Jewish Olympics," the Maccabiah Games, like the Jewish people and the State of Israel, has had its ups and downs. The tragic collpase of the bridge near Tel Aviv killed some of the Jewish athletes from Australia last time the games were around. Then the organizers of the Maccabiah Games, apparently following the lead of the fair and wise men who administered the 1972 Olympics in Munich ,where eleven Israeli athletes were brutally murdered by the PLO (Remember that group? What are they busy at now?), opted to let the Maccabiah games continue anyway. Sensitivities and human lives aside, the Olympic/Maccabiah spirit must always triumph. After all, the play, the games must go on. But, without seeming to be too contrary, I would pose the question: Why must they have gone on or go on now?
This year's Maccabiah Games came to be seen somehow as a test of Jewish solidarity with the State of Israel in our current difficult hour of confrontation with the same leadership of the PLO that killed our eleven athletes almost thirty years ago. As such, it has turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. Only about half of the athletes expected actually turned up for the games and entire Jewish communities absented themselves completely from participation in this year's contests. This is a further sad indication of the erosion of support for the State of Israel in the Jewish world, especially in the more assimilated sections of Jewish society where most of the potential Jewish athletes and Maccabiah committee members seem to come from. In fact, there was strong debate in Israel itself as to whether the Maccabiah Games should have been postponed this year. After all, we are currently engaged in a mini-war that sees Jewish and Arab blood spilled daily and maybe now is not a time for fun and games. It would have said in a dramatic fashion "rally round us now, speak up for Zion and Jerusalem!" Perhaps, holding the Games conveys a message of false bravado that further weakens true Jewish solidarity. Perhaps. I don't really know for certain my own mind in this matter, but my doubts gnaw at me.
The Olympic Games for the year 2008 were awarded to China. The brutal and authoritarian regime that governs that vast country organized "spontaneous" demonstrations of delirious public joy at the news of China having been chosen as the host of the next Olympic Games. There naturally were those innocents amongst us that protested the choice of China due to its dismal record regarding the freedom and the human rights of its citizens and its aggressions against its neighbors (Funny, why isn't Tibet considered "occupied territories?"). Why should the world continue to reward evil? But we have a strong precedent for this type of choice for an Olympic site in Olympic history. Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics as a great propaganda exercise in his drive to create his terrible "New Order." In order not to offend German sensibilities, Jewish athletes were purposely left home or somehow did not compete in those Games. Accommodating Hitler and his sensitivities with the pious hope that the tiger can be tamed by making nice to him only encouraged the bloodbath that Hitler brought on the world only three short years later. But the games must go on!
Sports is big business, national pride and public relations. It has come to dominate many aspects of our life. As did the Romans with their "bread and circuses," so too do modern governments use sports events as a safety valve to deflect public reactions to much more serious social and national problems. Questions of morality and national priorities are all sublimated to almighty sports. A lot of public, government, corporate and private money is being spent on the current Maccabiah Games. How wise an investment of our meager capital this is at the current moment is a matter of debate. In any event, I hope that the Games pass peaceably and in good spirit and sportsmanship. But thought should be given to the heretical notion that the games need not always necessarily go on.
Shabat shalom.
This year's Maccabiah Games came to be seen somehow as a test of Jewish solidarity with the State of Israel in our current difficult hour of confrontation with the same leadership of the PLO that killed our eleven athletes almost thirty years ago. As such, it has turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. Only about half of the athletes expected actually turned up for the games and entire Jewish communities absented themselves completely from participation in this year's contests. This is a further sad indication of the erosion of support for the State of Israel in the Jewish world, especially in the more assimilated sections of Jewish society where most of the potential Jewish athletes and Maccabiah committee members seem to come from. In fact, there was strong debate in Israel itself as to whether the Maccabiah Games should have been postponed this year. After all, we are currently engaged in a mini-war that sees Jewish and Arab blood spilled daily and maybe now is not a time for fun and games. It would have said in a dramatic fashion "rally round us now, speak up for Zion and Jerusalem!" Perhaps, holding the Games conveys a message of false bravado that further weakens true Jewish solidarity. Perhaps. I don't really know for certain my own mind in this matter, but my doubts gnaw at me.
The Olympic Games for the year 2008 were awarded to China. The brutal and authoritarian regime that governs that vast country organized "spontaneous" demonstrations of delirious public joy at the news of China having been chosen as the host of the next Olympic Games. There naturally were those innocents amongst us that protested the choice of China due to its dismal record regarding the freedom and the human rights of its citizens and its aggressions against its neighbors (Funny, why isn't Tibet considered "occupied territories?"). Why should the world continue to reward evil? But we have a strong precedent for this type of choice for an Olympic site in Olympic history. Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics as a great propaganda exercise in his drive to create his terrible "New Order." In order not to offend German sensibilities, Jewish athletes were purposely left home or somehow did not compete in those Games. Accommodating Hitler and his sensitivities with the pious hope that the tiger can be tamed by making nice to him only encouraged the bloodbath that Hitler brought on the world only three short years later. But the games must go on!
Sports is big business, national pride and public relations. It has come to dominate many aspects of our life. As did the Romans with their "bread and circuses," so too do modern governments use sports events as a safety valve to deflect public reactions to much more serious social and national problems. Questions of morality and national priorities are all sublimated to almighty sports. A lot of public, government, corporate and private money is being spent on the current Maccabiah Games. How wise an investment of our meager capital this is at the current moment is a matter of debate. In any event, I hope that the Games pass peaceably and in good spirit and sportsmanship. But thought should be given to the heretical notion that the games need not always necessarily go on.
Shabat shalom.