“There’s nothing overtly Jewish about lacrosse,” said Jonathan Fass about the stick-and-ball sport that originated with Native Americans.
“But,” he continued, “when Jewish teens get to be together, for athletics and social action, to celebrate Israel, they are celebrating their Judaism. It’s not in a traditional venue but still the same Judaism that has persisted for millennia.”
Fass is vice president and director of JCC Maccabi Games and the Merrin Center for Teen Engagement for the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America (JCCA), the organization that coordinates the Games.
And an estimated 1,000 or more Jewish teens (ages 13-16) from around the world will converge in Milwaukee, joining a 200-member local delegation in celebrating their Judaism at the 2015 JCC Maccabi Games, Sunday, Aug. 2, through Friday, Aug. 7.
The opening ceremony will be held downtown at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The door will open at 5:30 p.m., a pre-event show will be held at 6:30, and the program will begin at 7. Jewish Milwaukee native and Olympic gold medal swimmer Garrett Weber-Gale will carry a torch into the arena.
Yet this isn’t a typical Olympic-styled competition. The Games are equally, if not more so, focused on values and giving back to the community at large.
Mark Shapiro is president and chief executive officer of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, and Jesse Rosen is JCC Maccabi Games director for Milwaukee. Both said that the Games are intended to make all of Milwaukee, Jewish and beyond, a better place.
Values imbued
This event is a collaborative effort of many agencies, including governmental offices, charitable organizations and corporations, Shapiro and Rosen said.
Athletes will take a break from competition to dedicate themselves to charitable and community-building projects through an initiative called JCC Cares.
They will partner with Special Olympics of Wisconsin for a track meet, package snacks for the Hunger Task Force, build a garden at the JCC in support of the Jewish Community Pantry and work to install fitness equipment at Walker Square Park.
In a larger context, the Games will raise money to prevent childhood obesity and create healthy communities.
“The depth by which everyone involved in the Milwaukee Games is helping to make a better Milwaukee is more than admirable,” said Fass. “It is the best of what JCC Maccabi can be.”
Values also are imbued in the competitions. Take the rachmanus rule.
In Hebrew, rachmanus means “compassion.” If one team is vastly outscored, the leading team abides by modified rules. In basketball, for example, the winning team has to pass the ball a certain amount of times before shooting.
“The Maccabi Games are unlike any other athletic competition that I’ve ever been associated with in that as much as it’s presented as an athletic competition, it’s really about community building, exemplified by the rachmanus rules,” said Ari Friedman.
Friedman is director of security and community properties for the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. He was a basketball coach for the Milwaukee delegation the first time the JCC Maccabi Games were held in Milwaukee in 1997, when about 635 teens participated.
“You won’t see trash talk on a basketball court or on a soccer field,” said Friedman, who after 1997 coached other Milwaukee teams for Games in other cities. “Instead, you see athletes extending a hand to help someone up.”
On a similar note, Shapiro explained the Midot Medal. Midot, in Hebrew, literally signifies “measurement,” but in this context means “character traits.”
This medal is given to athletes who demonstrate stellar qualities: good-heartedness, respectfulness, efforts to repair the world (tikkun olam), Jewish peoplehood, joy and pride.
“We give gold medals to athletes who live the values as much as we do to those who win competitions,” said Shapiro.
New perspectives
Not only do the Games bring out the best in character, but they give the participants new perspectives. Shapiro said he has firsthand experience of this.
He was on the Chicago delegation at the very first Games, held in 1982 in Memphis, Tenn. He was primarily a swimmer, though as did most of those first 300 teen athletes, he participated in other competitions as well — basketball, volleyball and soccer.
“I felt a part of something substantially bigger than I’ve felt my whole life,” Shapiro said.
Giving participants that feeling is one of the national office’s overall goals, according to Fass. “We want our athletes to learn that the Jewish community is much larger than the Jewish community these athletes know from their hometown,” Fass said.
Moreover, for some athletes, said Friedman, the JCC Maccabi Games can be a person’s entrée into a more meaningful Jewish life.
Shapiro added, “It gives everyone a low barrier, an accessible way to be a part of the Jewish community.”
Rosen said soon after he became local Games director, he received a call from a 54-year-old man who lives in Franklin. “The last Jewish experience he had was at his bar mitzvah ceremony,” said Rosen. “He heard about the Games and wanted to ref baseball. He now has a way to reconnect to the Jewish community.”
The Games have a more modern pedigree than the Judaism they celebrate. They go back to the founding of the first “Israel Gymnastic Club” in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1895.
In 1898, Zionist leader, author and physician Max Nordau called for a “Jewry of muscles” at the second Zionist congress. That speech helped inspire creation of Jewish athletic and sports organizations throughout Europe.
In 1927 at the 12th Zionist congress, some of these organizations created the Maccabi World Union. It was headquartered first in Germany, then in Great Britian, and it organized the first Maccabiah Games in then-Palestine in 1932. Eventually, the union moved to Israel where it has run the Maccabiah Games there every four years since 1950.
The union also has affiliates in more than 60 countries. According to Michael Gordon, program director of the JCC Maccabi Games for the JCCA, the Maccabi World Union and its affiliates Maccabi USA and Maccabi Canada collaborated with the JCCA to create the first JCC Maccabi Games in 1982.
The annual Games have grown from 300 participants in one city to more than 6,000 in multiple cities. This year the Games will take place in Dallas, Texas, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as well as Milwaukee.
For more information about the Milwaukee Games, visit MilwaukeeMaccabi.org.
Joshua Becker is a Spanish teacher for Shorewood Public Schools and a freelance writer.
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