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Recullizzg yadaism of mascles’ Joseph Hoffman

The diehard prejudice that Jews are cerebra4 deskbound and uninterested in

physìcal$tness mns head-on ì#to contrary evidence at IsraeZ’s Pierre

Gìldesgame Maccabi Sports Museum. Curator Dr Jostph Hofman tells its

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The Pierre Gildesgame Maccabi Sports Museum and Archives, located at Kfar Maccabiah, Ramat Gan, Israel, is a unique institution dedicated to Jewish sport. It was founded in 1980 by its first director-curator and current president, Arthur Hanak. Recently accepted as a fully fledged member of the Interna- tional Council of Museums (ICOM), the museum highlights the develop- ment of the Maccabi movement and its predecessors, the Jewish gymnastic as- sociations in late nineteenth-century Europe.

After Arthur Hanak left the post of Director-General of the Maccabi World Union, he decided to sort out the massive amount of archival mate- rial which had accumulated since the founding of that sports-promotion body in 1921. During his work on this project, which his colleagues assured him would take ‘only a few weeks’, he uncovered such a wealth of photo- graphs, medallions, trophies, statu- ettes, posters, bibliographic material and the like, he said, ‘that a museum was the only logical place to preserve it’. He added: ‘The world is aware of the Jewish contribution to intellectual and spiritual life, but less well-known is our penchant for physical fitness.’

0- P 3 8 P 2 Illustrations by courtesy of the author

WasJacob kit below the belt?

The present director, Rivka Rabino- Witz, is guiding the museum through a new era which includes the restructur- ing of the interior, the rearrangement of the exhibition space and the youth educational centre, and the computer- ization of our archives.

The museum’s namesake is Pierre Gildesgame, C.B.E. (1903-81), known

as ‘Mr Maccabi’. He was Chairman and later President of Maccabi World Union. As a youth, Gildesgame became an accomplished equestrian for Maccabi London, and soon became the club‘s chairman. Perhaps his great- est accomplishment occurred after the Second World War when he helped to revitalize the Maccabi movement in the wake of the Holocaust.

He was one of the principal archi- tects of the Third Maccabiah games, which took place in 1950, the first after a twelve-year hiatus caused by the war. He stipulated for ensuing games that athletes need not be members of a Maccabi club in order to participate, but that the games were open to all Jewish sportsmen. He was also a co- founder of Maccabi Village at Ramat Gan, which today houses the finest sporting complex in Israel, and the museum which bears his name, for which he found the funds. He was also Chairman of the Friends of the Israel Art Museums.

since Hellenistic times with the erec- tion of stadiums and hippodromes in Jerusalem, Caeserea and other centres under the enthusiastic patronage of King Herod. Some scholars also hold that reference to sport can be found in the Bible.

For example, Samuel 2: 12-17 describes a contest between soldiers while waiting for a battle to begin. Twelve men were chosen from each side. Although the exact nature of the engagement is unrecorded, biblical ex- perts believe it to have been a form of fencing. Genesis 38: 18-25 lists a wres- tling belt as one of the three personal articles of identification of Judah, and some experts suggest that the story of

Jewish sport can tië -documented -

77- Joseph Hoffizan

Jacob’s wrestling with the angel (Gen- esis 3 2 24-6), in which his opponent beat Jacob by touching the hollow of his thigh, constituted a violation of the rule against hitting below the belt!

After the establishment of the first scattered Jewish gymnastic clubs in 1894, an effort was made to galvanize them into a strong central body. An impassioned plea was made for the cre- ation of a ‘Judaism of Muscles’ in 1898. Jewish sport developed rapidly, first through local gymnastic clubs in Ger- many and Czechoslovakia, and after- wards in the consolidation of these myriad groups in the Maccabi World Union (MWU) in 1921.

From Australia to South Amerìca

Our museum’s displays, situated on three floors covering 200 m2, chronicle through much original archival mate- rial the emergence and development of organized Jewish sport the world over.

On entering, the visitor is greeted by an almost life-size photograph of the earliest documented Jewish sports club, the Israelite Gymnastic Associ- ation, which was founded in 1895 by German and Austrian Jews living in Constantinople who had been excluded from ‘Aryan’ athletic clubs. Arthur Hanak stresses the change in nomenclature from Constantinople’s ‘Israelite’ label to ‘Jewish’ of Berlin’s For senior citizens, links with the past.

Jidiscbe Tttrzscba$ (founded in 1903) as heralding a self-conscious awakening of Jewish spirit: ‘Jews no longer saw themselves as remnants of a biblical people, but rather as part of the mod- ern world, and this included the world of sport.’

This change incurred the anger of both the secular and the religious camps. The Zionist organizations con- tended it was ‘not Jewish enough’ since it did not stress the centrality of Eretz Isarael (Palestine), while the Reform movement, then deliberately assimila- tionist, found it ‘too Jewish’. For good measure, the more traditional school of thought felt completely threatened by any society that would detract from orthodox religious studies.

Objects on display include song- books for gymnasts, protocols for proper athletic behaviour, member- ship cards, badges, medallions and tro- phies of the various early groups. Also

the pioneering work of the Maccabi World Union by David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. Einstein wrote in part: ‘It is good that the one-sided intellectualization of the Jewish people is being countered by YOU.’ Freud, in the last year of his life, permitted his name to be used as a patron by the Maccabi World Union. The history of the Maccabi movement is set forth in a visitor-activated audio-visual display; narration is available in Hebrew, English and Spanish.

The second floor of the museum is dedicated to the thirteenth Maccabiad (popularly called the ‘Jewish Olym- pics’). Begun in 1932, they were held every year (except for the war years) until 1953, when they became a qua- drennial event. The Maccabiads bring together the best Jewish athletes the world over to compete-in an ever-wid- ening range of sporting events. The items on exhibit include posters, tro- phies, medals, photographs, first-issue stamps, journalistic accounts, pro- grammes, and more off-beat items such as cigarette lighters, cutlery and clothing with the Maccabi logo. Indi- vidual showcases are also dedicated to Jewish athletes who distinguished themselves in the world Olympic Games, such as Elias Katz, a gold med- allist in the 3,000-metre team race at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, and Micky Hirschl, who won a bronze medal in

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RecaKng yudaim of muscles’ 73

S. Sandler (South Africa), winner of the 800 metres (I min. 58.2 sec.).

free-style and Graeco-Roman wres- tling at the 1932 Los Angeles games.

The third floor deals with the worldwide ramifications of the Mac- cabi movement. Space is set aside for some of the Maccabi clubs which per- ished in the Holocaust, such as those in Lithuania and Germany. There are also exhibits about clubs that are today thriving in far-flung corners of the globe, with special attention to the contribution of Jewish sport in Austra- lia and South America.

Culture and fun

Our museum appeals to two widely divergent age groups. On the one hand, senior citizens flock here to find attention given to kin who participa- ted in Jewish sporting clubs before the Second World War. These people lin- ger before our displays of medallions and trophies, and pore over documen- tary material in adjacent archives. For them, the museum is an important link with the past. On the other hand, chil- dren - with parents, or in school groups and sport classes - come to see reminders of authentic Jewish heroes, the amateur athletes who distinguished themselves in the Maccabiads as well as the professional Maccabi players, chief among them the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball squad which won the

European Cup in 1977 and 1981 and finished in second place in the last two tournaments (1988 and 1989). This group appreciates the large photo- graphs and video clips of their favorite stars in action.

A sports museum has the potential to be a very attractive cultural gather- ing point, because it combines culture and fun. Many people who consider themselves uncultured balk at a museum’s entrance, certain that what- ever is hanging on the walls will be be- yond them, and that time spent in such a structure is lost. But our museum can regale them with exciting objects which re-create the past as well as give hope to the next generation of Jewish athletes. For the most part, we are dealing with objects which in them- selves have no great value (except, of course for those trophies and medals fashioned from precious metals and certain memorabilia). Their worth comes from the light they shed on the Jewish contribution to physical cul- ture. m