»The largest contact exchange in the world« (daily newspaper Junge Welt)

From July 12 to 26, 2022, the 21st Maccabiah 2022, the Maccabi World Games, will take place in Israel, a sporting event with around 11,000 participants from over 80 countries. How big will the German delegation be?

We will travel to Israel with 240 athletes. This is the largest delegation ever from Germany to take part in this world’s third largest sporting event after the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We are particularly proud of this and reckon we have good chances in individual sports such as table tennis, golf, chess or fencing. I would like to run the half marathon myself.

This time around 3,000 sporting decisions are on the program for the event, which had its premiere in 1932. That’s about nine times as many as at the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Yes, that is enormous and shows the whole dimension. We have competitions in almost 50 sports and participants of all ages, from young people in the age groups U16 and U18 to seniors. As much as the focus is on the sport, the Maccabiah’s idea is much bigger. First and foremost, this is a huge meeting where Jews from all over the world come together, meet and exchange ideas and go on trips together to get to know the country and its people. In these days, an incredible number of friendships are made, partnerships and marriages are established. You could say: Maccabiah is the largest contact and placement exchange in the world.

Wouldn’t someone who can organize an event of this magnitude also have the potential to host the Olympic Games?

You allude to the idea of ​​a joint Olympic bid by Israel and Germany, which I’ve also read about. Of course, the Maccabiah is always an organizational tour de force. But you have to know that the sports facilities that we use for this are not comparable to Olympic standards. A completely different level is required that cannot be compared with the demands of our participants. Of course, top athletes will be there again this time in Israel, but in terms of its character, this is an event for ambitious amateur and recreational athletes. The idea that the infrastructure could be used for the Olympic Games without much effort is simply wrong.

So no chance for a joint German-Israeli bid for the 2036 Summer Games, for example?

Of course, 100 years after the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany, that would be a symbol with enormous symbolic power, but I think there are a number of practical reasons why it shouldn’t. Just the fact that these are two countries thousands of kilometers apart and, to my knowledge, the International Olympic Committee has never awarded games to two hosts. Personally, I think it makes more sense if Germany promotes its own Olympic bid and then fills it with so much content that there are opportunities for historical reappraisal. We could learn a lot about how we want to treat each other and live together in this country, which I would personally welcome very much.

What can your association Makkabi Germany do?

Quite a lot, as we know since the opening of our currently almost 40 local clubs to non-Jewish members. The 2006 World Cup in Germany provided the decisive impetus for this. Until then, we had viewed our association and our clubs as closed spaces so that we could do sports in peace and security. With the World Cup there was a new self-image. Suddenly we didn’t just want to walk around with the white and blue flag of Israel, but at the same time with the black, red and gold one, without giving up our Jewish identity. With the opening for non-Jewish members in 2007, we built bridges and reduced prejudices.

With what result?

Fifteen years ago Makkabi Germany had about 2,500 members in Germany. There are now more than 6,000, of whom an average of two-thirds are Jewish. In the local association in Frankfurt am Main, in which almost half of all Makkabi members in Germany are organized, the number of members has increased from 250 to more than tenfold since 2007, mainly thanks to children and young people, and the proportion of Jewish members is now around 25 Percent. We have achieved this above all by improving the level of training with the best possible trained trainers and by representing the philosophy that social development and thus the understanding of democracy are particularly important to us in parallel to sporting development. We now want to transfer what has proven itself in Frankfurt to as many other local associations as possible.

On September 5th, it will be exactly 50 years since eleven Israeli athletes lost their lives in an attack by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. How will your association remember this?

Normally, our delegation meets before every Maccabiah for a two-day precamp. This time we extended it to four days and organized a memorial event on July 10 in Duisburg. Shaul Ladany, a former walker and Israeli champion who survived the Holocaust and the Munich hostage crisis, is often with us and keeps the memories alive with his personal accounts. It’s great that we have the 86-year-old with us as a contemporary witness.