The Jewish Olympics

Having grown from 390 athletes from fourteen countries to nine thousand athletes from seventy-eight countries, the Maccabiah Games (or the “Jewish Olympics,” as it has come to be known) continue to gain popularity. The Maccabiah Games, which take place in Israel, first began in 1932, and the latest games took place in July of 2013, with the debut of participants from Cuba, Albania, and Nicaragua. Sports range from table tennis to ice hockey, basketball, chess, and much more. Past participants have included former NBA coach Larry Brown, Olympic swimmers Mark Spitz and Jason Lezak, and Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord, among others. The Jewish Olympics details the history of the Maccabiah Games, including how they began, how they have grown in popularity, how they have impacted the Jewish community worldwide, and much more. In addition, it highlights the countless special achievements of the athletes over the course of the nineteen games. The Jewish Olympics is a detailed and fascinating history that will interest any sports fan, as well as individuals interested in cultural events. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Celebrating the unusually rich collection of stories that make up the history of the Jews at the Olympic Games, this work shows how many of the athletes fought battles both on and off the running track and how the personal drama and enduring humanity of their stories goes beyond sport and embraces politics, heroism, and resilience. From the first Olympics in Athens in 1896 through to the disasters and triumphs of Munich 1972 and beyond, Jews and the Olympic Games, which features a list of the more than 250 Jewish medalists, is a powerful account of the conflict between sport and politics.

In the last century young Jews, particularly in Central Europe, found that they had the new and exhilarating opportunity to give expression to their physical talents and energy. How they and their successors grasped it is the theme of this engaging book, the fruits of the author's lifelong research and enthusiasm. Even after the Holocaust, Jews were among the outstanding Olympians, and over 400 Jewish medallists from the first modern Games in Athens in 1896 to the Sydney Millennium Games. However, this is not merely a book of record and records, names and events. Yogi Mayer has drawn on his own memories as an athlete, coach, educator and sports journalist to create a compelling, illustrated eyewitness account. He has known many of the athletes who are featured in the book and he describes their personalities, virtues, weaknesses and, in some cases, tragic fates.

Documents the contribution of Hungarian Jews to sporting achievements in Hungary in the 19th-20th centuries. In the 19th century the Jew's interest in sports was part of a process of Magyarization and assimilation, despite antisemitism in Hungarian society. Successful Jewish athletes continued to face discrimination, malicious remarks, etc.

Held in Germany, the 1936 Olympic Games sparked international controversy. Should athletes and nations boycott the games to protest the Nazi regime? More Than Just Games is the history of Canada’s involvement in the 1936 Olympics. It is the story of the Canadian Olympic officials and promoters who were convinced that national unity and pride demanded that Canadian athletes compete in the Olympics without regard for politics. It is the story of those Canadian athletes, mostly young and far more focused on sport than politics, who were eager to make family, friends, and country proud of their efforts on Canada’s behalf. And, finally, it is the story of those Canadians who led an unsuccessful campaign to boycott the Olympics and deny Nazi Germany the propaganda coup of serving as an Olympic host. Written by two noted historians of Canadian Jewish history, Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, More than Just Games brings to life the collision of politics, patriotism, and the passion of sport on the eve of the Second World War.

Arguably history's most famous woman fencer, named as one of the top 100 athletes of the century by Sports Illustrated, Helene Mayer won the gold for Germany in the 1928 Berlin Olympics. Eight years later, with America poised to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics over anti-Semitism, the Nazis brought Mayer home from self-imposed exile in California to be the token Jew on their team. This marvelous book is the story of a beautiful and talented young woman who tries to win back her citizenship by fencing for the Third Reich. The thought-provoking saga of the central figure in the 20th century's most dramatic sports controversy.

This “startlingly good and vividly illuminating book” sheds new light on the Fascist sports spectacle that transfixed the world (The Spectator). For two weeks in August 1936, Nazi Germany achieved an astonishing propaganda coup when it staged the Olympic Games in Berlin. Hiding their anti-Semitism and plans for territorial expansion, the Nazis exploited the Olympic ideal, dazzling visiting spectators and journalists alike with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. In Hitler’s Olympics, Anton Rippon tells the story of those remarkable Games, the first to overtly use the Olympic festival for political purposes. His account, which is illustrated with almost 200 rare photographs of the event, looks at how the rise of the Nazis affected German sportsmen and women in the early 1930s. And it reveals how the rest of the world allowed the Berlin Olympics to go ahead despite the knowledge that Nazi Germany was a police state.

This daughter's profile of Czechoslovak swimmer and water polo player Kurt Epstein (1904-1975) traces the history of Jewish athletes in Central Europe and provides a case study of one such life-long athlete. Epstein grew up a stone's throw from the Elbe River and began swimming before the First World War, when his town of Roudnice nad Labem was still part of Austria-Hungary. In high school, he became a competitive rower and swimmer, challenging prevailing stereotypes about Jews and becoming a leading Czechoslovak water polo player and swimming coach, representing his country at two Olympic Games, in 1928 and 1936. In addition to describing the cultural background of the Epstein family in the Bohemian countryside, the book examines Kurt Epstein's decision to participate in the 1936 Berlin "Nazi" Olympics, and follows him through a series of Nazi concentration camps back to Prague, where he was elected member of the Czechoslovak National Olympic Committee. After the Communist putsch of 1948, Epstein vowed to flee "in a swimsuit if necessary" and, at 44, emigrated to New York City where he became a cutter in the garment district, swam weekly at the St. George pool in Brooklyn, and served as Treasurer of The Association of Czechoslovak Sportsmen in Exile in the Western World.