Maccabiah

"In 1912 Tel Aviv, 15-year-old Yosef Yekutieli plays soccer with his friends in an empty lot, reads about Jewish athletes from other countries winning Olympic medals in Stockholm, and dreams of an athletic competition for Jews from all over the world. He and his friends laugh at the idea, but he continues thinking about it, gradually solving the problems of holding such a competition in Tel Aviv: paving a running track; building a stadium; making arrangements for swimmers to use Haifa harbor. By 1931, one question remains: how to find and invite Jewish athletes from far-flung communities. The answer? A motorcycle brigade travelling through North Africa and Europe, from Egypt to England, personally inviting athletes and spreading the word through local journalists to build publicity. At the first Maccabiah Games in 1932, 390 athletes represented eighteen different countries.

Maccabiah is told in the first person; Yekutieli narrates the story of his life and how he faced the challenges of establishing such a large international competition. An afterword provides historical details about his life and the 'Maccabiah Games, Then and Now,' including photographs from early and more recent competitions. In a note addressed to the reader, Olitzky and Cohen emphasize Yekutieli’s persistence and ask how the reader shows grit like Yosef, highlighting the links between the Hebrew words hatmada (persistence) and tamid (eternal) and the Eternal Flames of the Maccabiah and Olympic Games and the Eternal Light readers may have seen over the ark at a synagogue.

With explanatory material, vibrant illustrations, and a text that easily leads itself to be read aloud, this book is an ideal introduction to the Games, which will be unfamiliar to many, and the inspiring true story behind them for preschool and early elementary students. The adults in their lives might just learn something new, too. This enlightening title is recommended for all library collections."

—Association of Jewish Libraries

"Com­bin­ing sports, dreams, grit, and sur­pris­es, this delight­ful pic­ture book deliv­ers the ori­gins of the ​'Jew­ish Olympics,' the Mac­cabi­ah Games in Israel. The sto­ry reveals the birth of a major inter­na­tion­al event while under­lin­ing the mes­sage that one per­son tru­ly can make a dif­fer­ence. Read­ers absorb the sus­pense of wait­ing for twen­ty years for an idea to come to fruition.

Yosef Yeku­tieli, a teenag­er, lis­tens on the radio to the 1912 Sum­mer Olympics in Swe­den; few Jew­ish ath­letes com­pete. He wants Jews from all over to com­pete in Israel despite the fact there is no coun­try yet (Israel is at that time part of the Ottoman Empire), no facil­i­ties, and no orga­ni­za­tions to help. Over time, Josef per­sists despite non-believ­ers. He finds an own­er to donate land for the sta­di­um and arranges for the rail­road to donate cin­ders for the track. He assigns swim­ming to the nat­ur­al har­bors, sav­ing on build­ing a pool.

How can they invite Jew­ish ath­letes world­wide? Jews live in count­less coun­tries; no one speaks the same lan­guage or reads the same news­pa­pers. Few have tele­phones. The solu­tion: motor­cy­cle rid­ers! These motor­cy­cle rid­ers cross moun­tains and deserts from Haifa to Bel­gium, from Egypt to London.

One year later, the first games are held in Tel Aviv. From the tenac­i­ty of one man cling­ing to his teenage dream, we gain the third-largest sport­ing event in the world: ten thou­sand Jew­ish ath­letes from eighty nations every four years in the coun­try of Israel.

The book is both pep­py and per­son­able. Most of the text is dia­logue and con­ver­sa­tions rather than nar­ra­tive. The pic­tures are joy­ous, active, and focused on appeal­ing indi­vid­u­als. The end­note bursts with infor­ma­tion. Read­ers will be eager to vic­ar­i­ous­ly expe­ri­ence these his­tor­i­cal events."

—Jewish Book Council