Munich memories

January 12, 2011 - 12:14 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Life, News, Politics, Sports, War 

When I saw a news report Tuesday that Munich was one of the three cities that had officially entered a bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, I could hardly believe my eyes.

What was behind the thinking of the city officials behind the campaign? ‘Well, we screwed up in ’72, but maybe we can do better next time if we get another chance.’

The families of the 11 Israelis killed in the Palestinian terrorist attack on the Olympic Village in 1972 may not be thrilled with the possibility that Munich will beat out Annecy, France, and Pyeongchang, South Korea for the privilege of hosting the 2018 winter games and they have good reason.

Anke Spitzer, widow of one of the victims, Israel fencing coach Andre Spitzer, has been spearheading a campaign for years to convince the International Olympic Committee to hold a memorial service during the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. The IOC has repeatedly denied the requests, saying they don’t want to mix politics and sport or offend the participants from Arab and Muslim states.

Spitzker related to The Jerusalem Post how she attended the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she met with the German delegation at their complex. She said that she was told by delegates that “the people of Munich feel short-changed, that they lost an Olympics because of what happened [in 1972]. We told them we lost a little more than this.”

Spitzker and other widows from the attack like Ilana Romano, the 64- year-old widow of weightlifter Yosef Romano, can live with another Munich Olympics if the memorial ceremony is included. Romano said the that the event being held in Munich again “will remind people of the victims and of what happened.”

“I absolutely believe that Munich is a very painful place for us, for families to walk there again and see the Olympics there again it will reopen old wounds. But, for the memory of the victims, this is the place where the ceremony must be held and someone with the courage to make it happen must step forward and do so.”

So, if the International Olympic Committee is brazen enough to choose Munich as the 2018 site, let them at least be compassionate enough to also vote to inaugurate the memorial ceremony for the Israeli victims of 1972. It’s the least they can do.

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Israeli bathers – beware of matkot sightings

May 4, 2009 - 10:49 AM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Sports 

matkotYou can keep your baseball and soccer. What more typically Israeli sport could there be than matkot?

Essentially beachside paddleball with those big flat paddles and tiny rubber ball – matkot is an Israeli obsession – you take your life into your hands when you walk on any beach in the country. I still can’t figure out if there are rules or not – are the players trying to hit it to each other, or smash it past each other?

Now, there’s someone who’s trying to codify the game – 65-year-old Amnon Nissim and his Morris Zadok, the self appointed “father of matkot in Israel.” According to a story by Jerrin Zumberg in The Jerusalem Post, Nissim has turned his Tel Aviv apartment into the unofficial “Matkot Museum of Israel.

He also holds court most days below the Crown Plaza hotel on Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach, where the best matkot players in the country have been gathering for 70 years.

Nissim’s mission is not only to formalize the game through set rules, competitions and organized community events, but to make it an official Olympic event.

“It’s the most Israeli game there is,” says Zadok, 59. “It’s a game of peace and togetherness where you aren’t playing against one another, but as partners to reach a goal.”
Zadok’s web site is devoted to matkot and promoting his Bat Yam sporting goods store. A letter to prospective players about matkot says, “It’s not just a game, but a way of life, and an excuse to go down to the beach. There’s no better way to get a tan, meet friends and let out some energy.”

To formalize the game for serious players, Zadok created a set of rules. Rounds of three minutes are spent hitting the ball. Each team of two players stands eight meters apart, trying to get as many hits as possible. Each hit, or point, is earned by the ball going back and forth once. The national record is 178 hits in the three-minute window.

While I may stick to tennis, I’ll now have some new found respect for matkot players next time I get bashed in the head by a stray ball on the beach.

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Small belts

December 1, 2008 - 4:56 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Life, Sports 

Israeli children participating in a karate activityOne of Israeli schoolchildren’s favorite methods of exercise is martial arts. Thai boxing, kickboxing and judo are enormously popular, and karate is also huge. For most Israeli karate instructors, the teen and adult sets represent a tiny minority of their teaching time, with littler ones taking up the lion’s share.

A recent piece in Ha’aretz examines the phenomenon in depth, exploring the question of whether children aged four or five truly have much to gain by studying the martial arts. Also noteworthy is a list of potential benefits from martial arts training, which include increased self-esteem, increased levels of fitness, development of a sense of competition, fostering a sense of self-discipline, garnering a healthy outlet for letting out aggression, and other types of increased spiritual grounding.

The article also notes that according to the 2000 Sport Law, all phys-ed instructors must be licensed as sports instructors, which has increased the demand for certification courses like those offered at the prestigious Wingate Institute. Located near Netanya, Wingate offers instructors’ training on a high level, with an emphasis on educational techniques (the institute also houses training programs and facilities for Israel’s internationally exported athletes, including our Olympians).

Picking a good teacher, though, can be as important a decision as choosing when to get your kid started – check out these guys:

“After one or two training sessions I can tell parents about their child’s problems if there are any,” says Arthur Gribetz, the chief Tora dojo trainer in Jerusalem, a method based on Japanese karate. Gribetz notes that karate training “is very systematic and it teaches students to feel the body and the breath,” and therefore also helps decrease excess muscle tension, improves motor skills, teaches distinguishing between left and right and more.”

Shalom Avitan, chairman of the Karate-Shotokan Association in Israel, says that any sport in which there is correct training, with the appropriate trainer, contributes to a child’s development, but the acquisition of self-confidence is not to be taken for granted. “Self- confidence is built up over time,” says Avitan. “It is necessary to train for at least a year and a half or two years to start to see results, and that on condition that the trainer is a professional and aware of the children’s needs. If you throw a small child into combat with children who are bigger and more experienced than he is, this isn’t going to contribute to his self-confidence,” he says.

So no, you can’t just force your children to wax the car, scrub the floor, paint the fence and hope that they’ll be champions after a few weeks.

Image courtesy Tomer.Gabel from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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