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European Maccabi Games to be Held at Olympic Venues Built by Nazis

JTA

By Toby Axelrod

BERLIN (JTA) – They are roaring through Europe, raising dust as they go: Jewish bikers bearing an Olympic-style torch all the way from Israel to this German city.

Next week, 11 core riders will pull their steel steeds into Berlin’s famous outdoor amphitheater, the Waldbuehne, to help usher in the 14th European Maccabi Games — the first ever in Germany — at a venue built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics. Other competitions will be held at the Olympic Stadium here, where Hitler presided over the opening of the games that year.

Adolf Hitler, second from left, watching the Olympic Games in Berlin with the Italian crown prince, left, August 1936. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The riders are following in the treads of the Maccabiah Riders, who rode through Europe in the early 1930s to promote the games then being held under British mandate in Palestine.

The July 28 opening ceremony, which will feature remarks by German President Joachim Gauck and a concert featuring Matisyahu, Dana International and others, will usher in 10 days of sports, parties, a Limmud Germany learning event and more. Some 2,300 Jewish athletes from 36 countries will take part, cheered on by fans bused in from across the country by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. And the sports venues, including Berlin’s Olympiastadion, will be open to all, free of charge and under heavy security.

Elen Katz and Catherine Lurie-Alt participating in a motorcycle rally from Israel to Berlin for the opening of the European Maccabi Games. (Yosef Alony)

Athletes will compete in 19 sports, as well as a few exhibition games pitting Jewish athletes against German soccer and basketball stars. On July 31, they will try to break the Guinness World Record for the largest kiddush ever.

The European Maccabi Games grew out of the Maccabi movement, which traces back more than a century to Turkey when Jews, then shut out of local sporting clubs, founded the Israel Gymnastic Club in 1895. Jews elsewhere followed suit.

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