After a break of more than 85 years, Maccabi Germany is again hosting winter games.
The Jewish athletic organization is intent on bringing winter sports back to the Jewish sporting world, Maccabi Germany said in a statement on its website.
The first modern Maccabi Winter Games are taking place from January 2 to 9 in scenic Ruhpolding, located in the Bavarian Alps.
Maccabi Germany noted that the last Jewish Winter Games took place in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1936, two years before the country was invaded by Nazi Germany. The first Winter Games occurred in Poland in 1933.
The winter games will feature a wide variety of sports, including alpine skiing, biathlon, ice stock sport (Bavarian curling), cross country skiing, figure skating, snowboarding and snow volleyball.
In honor of the opening of the event, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock paid tribute to the organization and the competition, describing on Instagram how the games are a “celebration of Jewish culture and identity.”
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, called the event a “figurehead for Jewish life in Germany,” according to Globe Echo.
“For the first time since 1936, a tradition is being revived here,” said the chair of the organizing committee, Alfi Goldenberg, the news site reported.