JANUARY 27 • 2022 | 39

T

he JCC Maccabi Games
are back.
Or, perhaps more
appropriately, starting again 40
years after they began.
After an unprecedented
two-year hiatus caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic, the
annual Olympic-style sports,
cultural and social event for
Jewish teens ages 13-16 will
return this summer in San
Diego.
It appears 22 Detroit
athletes will attend, perhaps
a few more, a steep drop in
attendance from previous
years.
There aren’t enough Detroit
athletes to form a team in any
team sport. Detroit athletes will

join forces with athletes from
other communities to create
teams.
These facts create a mixed
bag of emotions for Karen
Gordon, a Detroit Maccabi
delegation head since 1999.
“I’m excited the Maccabi
Games will be held for the first
time since we (Detroit) were
a host in 2019. It’s a sign that
all is right with the world. It
gives us a sense of normalcy,”
she said.
“But I’m disappointed, of
course, that we don’t have more
athletes going.
“When it was announced last
summer that San Diego would
be hosting the Maccabi Games
in 2022, I said at the time that

we’d have kids coming out of
the woodwork, or we’d have a
hard time fielding teams. It’s
the latter.”
Gordon pointed to several
reasons for Detroit’s small
turnout.
“Unfortunately, we’re not

done with COVID,” she said.
“
Also, there isn’t a ‘last
year’ or ‘year before’ for kids
to talk about their Maccabi
Games experiences with their
family and friends. We’ve lost
a generation of kids. We’re
starting over.”
Gordon said it’s also
possible that families had a
choice between sending their
children to summer camp
or the Maccabi Games and
chose camp if they had a good
experience last year.
The JCC Association
of North America, which
organizes and conducts the
Maccabi Games, has decreed
that all Maccabi Games
participants in San Diego —
athletes, coaches, organizers
and staff — must be vaccinated
against COVID-19.
Also, members of host
families who can be vaccinated
must be vaccinated.
“We lost a couple kids
because of the vaccination
mandate,” Gordon said.
Detroit has had more than
100 teens travel to Maccabi
Games sites in recent years.
ArtsFest joined the Maccabi
Games offerings in 2006.
Perhaps the high-water mark
in recent attendance for the
Detroit Maccabi delegation
was in 2006, when 90 teens
went to Vancouver on a charter
plane, and another 30 went to
Phoenix.
“It’s the only time we’ve used
a charter plane,” Gordon said.
Three years later, 96 Detroit
teens went to Mid-Westchester
(New York), 21 went to San
Francisco and 10 went to San

About two dozen athletes will represent Detroit this
summer at the revived JCC Maccabi Games.
Small but Mighty

continued on page 40

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

KAREN GORDON
KAREN GORDON

Karen
Gordon

SPORTS

Participants in the JCC Maccabi
Games & ArtsFest in Detroit in
2019 filled a blank wall at the
closing party with thoughts about
what Maccabi means to them.