Congregation Ohav Sholom

The Israel Experience - The Maccabiah Games

The Israel Experience - The Maccabiah Games

by Michael Rosenbloom (spidermr@aol.com)

The Maccabiah Games, also known as the Jewish Olympics, are forever tarnished by the tragedy, which caused the death of four members of the Australian team and injury of more than seventy in 1997. As the opening ceremonies were getting under way and athletes were marching into the stadium, by country in alphabetical order, a pedestrian bridge built to carry them collapsed into the heavily polluted Yarkon River. The bridge didn’t even last through the letter “A.“ Only recently has the State of Israel agreed to compensate monetarily an Australian tennis player, who was forced to undergo upwards of 30 operations due to the accident. Last year a court in Israel sentenced four men, convicted of negligence leading to death and damages in the aforementioned accident, to sentences of up to 21 months in prison. The court found that the bridge had been built with substandard materials and without suitable supervision or plans.

That said, my own personal memories of the Maccabiah Games are only positive. For the 1981 Games, the first Maccabiah Games in which softball was an event, I was selected co-captain of the Israeli national softball squad, but tore ligaments in my knee at a practice, a mere week before the games were to begin.

It was therefore with great anticipation that I looked forward to the 1985 Games, the twelfth Maccabiah Games. The ’85 softball competition was assured of being of a higher caliber than in 1981 because the United States and Canada for the first time, were each sending a team to compete against Israel, Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela. The Israel team was an all-star team selected from the five-year-old Israel Softball League. I was the team’s first baseman and batted second in the lineup.

The opening ceremonies were spine tingling, as each team’s athletes marched into a packed and cheering Ramat Gan Stadium, dressed in the uniforms of each respective country. At the end of the opening ceremonies the athletes from the numerous countries exchanged shirts, jackets or sneakers with each other, as the field became one giant dressing area. I remember exchanging shirts with a South African athlete.

Our first game was against Mexico. I’ll always remember this game because as my team’s first baseman, I never touched the ball; not a putout or assist. All the outs were either strikeouts or pop-ups, a clear indication of how pitching dominates fast-pitch softball. We won the game. As the competition progressed it became clear that the Canadians and Americans were the class of the tournament. We lost badly to both teams, but were assured of winning the bronze medal, if we could win our final game against Venezuela. The bronze medal game was a 1-0 nail-biter, one in which we prevailed. (See photo snapped after securing the bronze medal. I’m somewhere in the back row.)

Click the Image for a magnified Photo.

The gold medal game between Canada and the United States was a World Series-like atmosphere. Several hundred spectators gathered at Tel Aviv’s Sportek Field and were treated to an old fashioned, crisply played, tense, pitching duel. The American team was cheered on by the film actor Louis Gossett Jr., who was in Israel filming a movie. The game was hard fought but the United States won 3-0, to capture the gold. Their two best players, pitcher Dave Blackburn and first baseman Marty Rubinoff were in a league by themselves.

Never before had I participated in a competition at so high a level. All the pitchers in the tournament threw windmill style. The top two pitchers for the American and Canadian teams threw 80 plus miles per hour, which is faster than I had ever faced. From a purely sports point of view, the overriding difference between the softball competition in the Maccabiah Games and that of any other competition in which I had ever competed was the incredible concentration and focus demanded due to the high level of play and the stage. I believe that I wasn’t alone in this. No one wanted to embarrass himself by making a mental mistake. We collectively and individually raised our level of play to one we had never reached before.

I wish I could relate stories of experiences with opposing players and their impressions of the tournament and of visiting Israel, often for the first time. The fact is, I had a job to hold down and was not completely free to enjoy the other games or events or to mingle with opposing players. My employer Bank Leumi, was not overly enthused about one of its employees participating in the Maccabiah Games. Their attitude could be better described as indifferent, which I found somewhat curious. I was simply grateful for having the opportunity to attend the scheduled games as a participant and to be a spectator at the gold medal game.

The Israeli team finished the tournament with three wins and two losses (winning all our games except those against the U.S. and Canada). Participating in the Maccabiah Games for Israel was a thrill and an achievement I’ll always cherish and be proud of. When viewed solely as a competition, it was sports at the highest level I’d ever experienced. But when one also considers the pageantry, Zionism and the pride of representing Israel against Jewish all-star teams from other countries, I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the thrill of a lifetime.

April 2001

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