A Centennial Love Story

Jews won more Olympic fencing
in the first half of the 20th century
than any other ethnic group.

pating in more Olympic Games — seven — than any
other athlete.
What are the roots of this Jewish fascination with
the science of the sword? The most plausible expla-
nation is that fencing was part of the Jewish com-
munity's attempt to identify itself with, and be
accepted by, the upper classes. Fencing was, after
all, an aristocratic pursuit, closed to the Jews for
thousands of years.
The exact number of Jews participating in the
Olympic movement as athletes, coaches, referees and
officials may never be known. With the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, more and more former athletes
are willing to reclaim their Jewish heritage.
There are many records held by Jewish Olympians.
Two outstanding Jewish gymnasts, Agnes Keleti
from Hungary and Maria Gorochovskia from the So-
viet Union, amassed 18 medals in the 1952 and 1956

Tragic fates: Alfred Flatow, second from left, and
Felix Flatow, third from left, won gold medals in
gymnastics in the first Olympics in 1896. They later
died in the Holocaust.

Role model: Agnes Keleti, right, was one of the
most successful female competitors of the 1950s,
winning 10 medals in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics.

Games. Keleti defected from the Melbourne Olympiad
after the revolution in Hungary and made aliyah to
Israel, becoming its national coach. Gorochovskia,
on the other hand, had to wait to make aliyah until
the collapse of the Soviet empire. Among other he-
roes, we all remember and cherish the exceptional
performance of Mark Spitz in Munich, winning the
most medals anyone ever garnered in an Olympic
Game.

But Mr. Spitz was not
the only Jewish swim-
mer of note in the histo-
ry of the Games. Alfred
Hajos, dubbed the "Hun-
garian Dolphin" by ad-
miring Greeks, won two
gold medals in the first
Olympiad in 1896.
No other festival
showed all the beauty,
hypocrisy and tragedy of
the Games than the
1972 Munich Olympics.
The shadows of Pales-
tinian terrorists and
their victims are etched
into the consciousness of
the world. These images
remained when Avery
Brundage, president of
the International Olym-
pic Committee, an-
nounced at the Munich Games the dictim: "The
Games Must Go On." The Games did go on for the
Jews. And it is somehow comforting, and poetic jus-
tice, that two young Israelis, Yael Arad and Oren
Smadja, won Israel's first Olympic medals four years
ago in such an "un-Jewish" sport as judo. They and
others are this year anticipating writing a new chap-
ter to the long history of Jews and the Olympic
Games, a saga filled with tragedy and triumph.

Table Of Contents

A Centennial
Love Story

Jewish athletes: a
history filled with
tragedy and triumph.

0-8 Equal Treatment

Wheelchair tennis star Marc Nadel
promotes disability awareness.

Jewish Olympic
Medalists

0 6 Israeli Olympians

-

A roundup of contenders
from the Jewish state.

A compilation of
Jewish stars through
the Olympic years.

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