On July 1, if all goes according to plan, thousands of Jewish athletes will walk into Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium carrying flags from more than 50 countries. Some will come from communities grappling with rising antisemitism. Others will arrive from campuses where, they say, being visibly Jewish has become increasingly uncomfortable. Many spent the past year wondering whether the event would happen at all.
Originally scheduled for 2025, the Maccabiah Games – often referred to as the “Jewish Olympics” – were postponed after the outbreak of the June war with Iran forced organizers to delay the tournament just weeks before the opening ceremony.
For athletes, the postponement disrupted years of preparation. For organizers, it raised larger questions: whether delegations would still come, whether countries would approve travel, and whether an international Jewish sporting event could still take place in Israel during wartime.
Yet this summer, the games are expected to return.
“We’ve decided that we need it,” Roy Hessing, CEO of the Maccabiah and Maccabi World Union, told The Jerusalem Report in a recent interview. “Israelis, the Jewish communities around the world need it.”
The Maccabiah began with the vision of Yosef Yekutieli, a Belarus-born immigrant who was inspired by the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Yekutieli, an athlete, became determined to create an international sporting competition for Jewish athletes. Years of war, political resistance, and failed appeals to international sporting bodies delayed the idea, but the first games were eventually held in Tel Aviv in 1932, drawing Jewish athletes from across Europe and the Middle East.
“I think that it will be exactly the answer for the growing antisemitism around the world,” Hessing said about this year’s upcoming games.
More than medals
For Joel Solomon, a 21-year-old runner from Sydney who is now studying in New York at Wagner College, the decision to compete in the Maccabiah was tied as much to identity as athletics.
Solomon grew up outside Australia’s major Jewish communities and said he never felt especially connected to Judaism while growing up. That changed after moving to New York to attend university and the Bondi attack in December last year.
“I really wanted to be proud of where I come from and connect more with my identity,” he told the Report. Since he was 14, he has been competing in track and field and cross-country running events.
This summer will be both his first Maccabiah Games and his first trip to Israel.
The games are one of the world’s largest Jewish gatherings. According to organizers, more than 10,000 athletes from over 80 countries typically compete across dozens of sports.
David Wiseman, founder and co-creator of Follow Team Israel – a popular social media initiative created in 2012 to share positive stories of Israeli and Jewish athletes globally – believes the sport is secondary to what the games create off the field.
“When these people come to an environment where everyone is both Jewish and plays the same sport they do, it’s this incredible sense of unity and identity,” he told the Report. “The sport is the vehicle… for bringing all these people to come to Israel from all over the world.”
But this year’s tournament comes under very different circumstances.
Hessing described the event as likely to become the largest international gathering in Israel since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. Delegations from several countries have faced travel restrictions or security concerns, particularly for junior athletes. Organizers say participation numbers will likely be lower than in previous years.
“We do understand that it’s not going to be the biggest Maccabiah,” Hessing said.
This year’s games, scheduled for July 2 through July 12 under the slogan “More Than Ever,” are expected to bring more than 8,000 athletes from roughly 44 countries to compete across 45 sports.
Some delegations have already withdrawn junior athletes over security concerns. Maccabi South Africa’s chairperson, Clifford Garrun, recently told the South African Jewish Report that “the prospect was reducing and the risks just increasing.”
“We would have had a junior group there facing rockets, bomb shelters, and uncertainty,” he said.
While registration remains open, final participation numbers are subject to change, but Hessing said he remains confident the games will still draw a strong international turnout.
“Maccabi World Union’s role is to make the right connection between the Jewish Diaspora and the State of Israel via sport and educational programs,” he said.
The games, he said, often become a gateway to Israel for young Jews abroad. “Around 5% of them are really staying in Israel and making aliyah,” Hessing said.
Waiting for July
For athletes, however, the past year has also been marked by uncertainty.
Solomon said he had been training continuously since last August while balancing collegiate competition in the United States. But as the games approached, there were concerns that Australia’s track delegation might not travel at all because of security warnings.
“If that’s the case, I’d either go individually… or maybe on [team] USA,” he said. “I’m going there either way.”
The uncertainty is difficult for athletes competing in an event held only once every four years.
Yet Solomon said the games feel different now than they might have a few years ago. “Since December… I feel very connected to my Judaism, like the most it’s ever been,” he said.
For Hessing, those personal stories are central to what the Maccabiah represents. “Sport is the bridge to bring them to Israel,” he said.
The challenge this year has been convincing people to cross it.
Organizing the event during an ongoing regional conflict has created financial and logistical strain. Hessing said fluctuating participation numbers and travel advisories have dramatically affected planning and budgets.
Still, organizers pushed ahead.
“The leadership of Maccabi World Union worldwide decided to hold the games, no matter what,” Hessing said.
A history interrupted
The Maccabiah has been shaped by disruption before. After the second games in the 1930s, the tournament disappeared entirely between 1936 and 1949 as World War II and the Holocaust devastated Jewish communities across Europe.
More than six decades later, tragedy struck again.
During the opening ceremony of the 1997 Maccabiah in Tel Aviv, a temporary bridge over the Yarkon River collapsed, killing four Australian athletes and injuring dozens more.
Margot Mann, a Sydney-born masters swimmer, was standing near the center of the bridge when it gave way.
“We were all very excited… with all our new uniforms, the cute hats,” Mann recalled. Moments later, she said, “there was this unreal feeling like I’m floating down in slow motion.”
Mann escaped largely uninjured and helped account for missing members of the Australian delegation. In the days that followed, athletes debated whether the games should continue.
“It was decided that we would honor the memory of those four by continuing,” she said.
The atmosphere afterward, she said, changed completely. “We were all dulled,” Mann recalled. “There was a softening of the excitement.”
Still, she remembers the solidarity that emerged in the aftermath. “There was such a sense of shame and apology,” she said of the Israeli public response after the collapse. “We felt really supported and cushioned by that.”
Nearly three decades later, Mann believes this summer’s games may carry a similar emotional weight. “I think this time the Maccabiah is likely to produce the same sense of closeness and caring,” she predicted.
Choosing to come
For organizers, athletes, and former participants alike, this year’s tournament is about more than a competition.
“It’s going to be a different Maccabiah, but a very meaningful one,” Hessing said. He already knows the moment he believes will stay with him most: the opening ceremony at Teddy Stadium on July 1.
Hosted by Assi Azar and Anna Aronov, the ceremony is expected to feature performances by Montana Tucker, Netta Barzilai, Anna Zak, Idan Raichel, Itay Levy, and Yuval Raphael.
“When we will have a full stadium… singing ‘Hatikva,’” he said. “I believe that will be the moment.”
For Solomon, the meaning is simpler. After a year of uncertainty, postponed plans, and continued training, he is still preparing to board a plane to Israel for the first time.
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” he said.■