34 | AUGUST 31 • 2023 

Like many of the players on 
the Detroit/Grand Rapids/NYC 
team, Marcus and Werner, who 
live in Birmingham, play high 
school hockey.
Marcus, 16, is a junior at 
Detroit Country Day. A forward 
on the Country Day hockey 
team, he was a defenseman 
on the Maccabi Games team 
because that’s where he was 
needed.
Werner, 16, also was a 
defenseman for the Maccabi 
Games team. That’s where the 
Birmingham Seaholm junior 
plays on the Birmingham 
Unified hockey team, a co-op 
of Birmingham Groves and 
Seaholm.
It was the first trip to Israel 
for Werner, and he said he 
enjoyed every stop on the 
post-hockey tour. A party 
attended by the athletes in 
Tel Aviv was fun, he said, and 
seeing the Western Wall in 
Jerusalem was meaningful.
This was the second time in 
Israel for Marcus. He went with 
his family a few years ago on 
a trip put together by Temple 
Israel. 
Weiss, a West Bloomfield 
resident, worked with the Red 
Wings to organize a fundraiser 
at a Red Wings game at Little 
Caesars Arena that paid for 
his team’s Maccabi Games uni-
forms.
Aiden Ben-Ezra, Isaac 
Hosfield, Preston Lumberg, 

Jordan Newman, Elias 
Schwarzer, Asher Zacks and 
Micah Zacks were the other 
Detroit players on the Detroit/
Grand Rapids/NYC roster.
The two players from Grand 
Rapids were Aaron Goldman 
and Sully Popour. Joining the 
Michigan contingent from NYC 
were Ellis Bornstein, Louis 
Hizme, Liam Karty and Leo 
Velkin. 
Nine other Detroit athletes 
competed in the Maccabi 
Games in Israel, and Jacob 
Miller and Natalie Rothenberg 
were there from Detroit as Star 
Reporters. 
The athletes and the sport 
they played in Israel were 
Henry Petts, Ethan Rosenberg 
and Jordan White (basketball), 

Maelani Ben-Ezra, Sydney 
Goldman, Serena Hosfield and 
Austin White (soccer) and Levi 
Citron (swimming).
This was the first time since 
2011 and the second time in 
history that the Maccabi Games 
were held in Israel. 
The JCC Association of 
North America and Maccabi 
World Union combined forces 
to bring more than a thousand 
Jewish teens from 10 countries 
to Israel during the ongoing 
celebration of the country’s 75th 
anniversary year.
The Maccabi Games portion 
of the Israel experience for the 
teens included opening and 
closing ceremonies, community 
service and social and cultural 
events.
A loud and lengthy standing 
ovation and a sea of Ukrainian 
flags greeted the 10-member 
Ukrainian delegation during the 
opening ceremonies.
This is the 41st year for the 
Maccabi Games, the world’s 
largest Jewish youth sports 
event, which has been revived 
after a two-year layoff in 
2020 and 2021 caused by the 
COVID-19 pandemic. 

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stevestein502004@yahoo.com.

Coach Mark Weiss 
encourages his team.

MARK WEISS

Spencer Werner and his teammates brought a Red Wings flavor to 
OneIce Arena in Israel.

 SENYA ALMAN

$7.5 Million in 
Security Grants 
to Michigan 
Faith-Based 
Institutions

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (MI), 
chairman of the Homeland 
Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee, 
announced that $7.5 mil-
lion in grant funding will 
be awarded to nonprofits 
and faith-based organiza-
tions across Michigan to 
help them protect their 
facilities against potential 
attacks. 
The funding is from the 
Department of Homeland 
Security’s Nonprofit 
Security Grant Program 
(NSGP), which Peters has 
championed, to help reli-
gious institutions, includ-
ing synagogues, churches, 
mosques, gurdwaras and 
other nonprofits, strength-
en their security in the 
face of rising threats and 
attacks. 
Peters helped lead the 
reauthorization of this 
essential program last 
Congress and has helped 
secure substantial funding 
increases in recent years, 
including $305 million in a 
funding bill that was signed 
into law last year. 
 “Houses of worship in 
Michigan and across the 
country continue to face 
threats and attacks that are 
inspired by hate based on 
religion, like antisemitism 
and Islamophobia,” Peters 
said. “While this funding 
will be critical to helping 
communities feel safer, I 
will continue pushing the 
federal government to do 
more to combat the con-
tinued threat of domestic 
terrorism, including white 
supremacist violence.” 

SPORTS

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