(JTA) — The 2024 Paris Paralympics concluded Sunday, bringing to an end a summer full of athletic success for Jewish and Israeli competitors on the international stage.
Weeks after at least 21 Jewish athletes won a total of 18 medals at the Olympics, 15 Jewish and Israeli Paralympians racked up 13 medals of their own.
Israel won 10 medals — four gold, four bronze and two silver — its first double-digit medal count since the 2004 Athens Games. Swimmer Ami Dadaon led the way with four medals of his own, including two golds. Israel’s victories came as the country weathered tragedy and political upheaval at home.
For the United States, track and field star Ezra Frech enjoyed a breakout performance, winning golds on back-to-back days, the first two medals in a career he told NBC he hopes will make him “the greatest Paralympian of all time.”
Read on for all the Jewish and Israeli Paralympic medalists in Paris, listed in order of medal type.
Gold medalists
Ami Dadaon (two gold, one silver, one bronze)
Israeli swimmer Ami Dadaon led all Jewish Paralympians by medaling in four of his five events, bringing his career total to seven. Dadaon, 23, won gold in both the men’s 100-meter freestyle S4 and the men’s 200-meter freestyle S4. He set a new Paralympic record during heats for the 100-meter, an event in which he also owns the world record for his disability classification.
Dadaon, a Haifa native who was born with cerebral palsy, also won silver in the men’s 150-meter individual medley SM4 and bronze in the men’s 50-meter freestyle S4. Dadaon had entered the 50-meter competition with the world record, but it was topped in Paris by the gold medalist, Canada’s Sebastian Massabie. In his fifth event, the men’s 50-meter breaststroke SB3, Dadaon finished in fifth.
Ezra Frech (two gold medals)
US track and field standout Ezra Frech won his first-ever Paralympic medals, both gold, in the men’s 100-meter T63 and the high jump T63. Frech, 19, who was born without a left knee and shinbone and with only one finger on his left hand, captured the 100-meter gold in dramatic fashion, beating the German silver medalist by two hundredths of a second.
The following day, Frech won gold in the high jump. He had previously broken his own world record in the event during the US Paralympic trials in July. His 1.94-meter jump in Paris topped the Indian silver medalist by .06 meters and set a new Paralympic record. With that jump, Frech was .03 meters shy of his world record of 1.97 meters.
After winning two gold medals in Paris, Frech has his sights set even higher for the 2028 Games, which will take place in his hometown of Los Angeles. Frech said he hopes to earn what he calls the “triple crown” — winning gold in the long jump, high jump and 100-meter sprint. Frech finished fifth in the long jump in Paris.
Moran Samuel
Israeli rower Moran Samuel captured her first career Paralympic gold — and third medal overall — in the PR1 women’s single sculls. Samuel, 42, suffered a spinal stroke in 2006, paralyzing her lower body. “It’s a privilege to be here in this bubble at the Paralympic Games, and to finish with a gold medal — and to be able to scream the anthem from deep inside me is a moment I’ll never forget in my life,” Samuel told the Israeli broadcaster Sport5 after her win.
Asaf Yasur
Martial artist Asaf Yasur was the first Israeli athlete to medal in Paris, winning a gold in the men’s 58-kilogram K44 taekwondo competition. He defeated Turkish opponent Ali Can Ozcan by a score of 19-12 in the gold medal match after winning his quarterfinal and semifinal matches 23-6 and 16-6, respectively.
Yasur, 22, is a two-time world champion who made his Paralympic debut this summer. Both of Yasur’s hands were amputated when he was 13 years old after an electrocution accident.
Silver medalists
Israel’s women’s goalball team
Israel’s six-member team won a silver medal in women’s goalball, a handball-style sport for visually impaired athletes. The Israeli team fell to Turkey in the gold medal match after beating Canada in the quarterfinal and China in the semifinal. The team included Lihi Ben David, 28, Gal Hamrani, 31, Elham Mahamid, 34, Noa Malka, 21, Or Mizrahi, 31, and Roni Ohayon, 25.
The silver medal is Israel’s first in goalball as well as its first Paralympic medal in a team sport since 1988. Several members of the goalball team wore yellow ribbons in their hair during the semifinal match, a sign of solidarity with Israeli hostages, according to the Times of Israel.
Bronze medalists
Mark Malyar
Israeli swimmer Mark Malyar won his fourth career Paralympic medal in Paris, a bronze in the men’s 100-meter backstroke S8. Malyar, 24, who was born with cerebral palsy, had won two gold medals and a bronze in Tokyo. Malyar, whose brother Ariel also competed in Paris, finished just 1.84 seconds behind the Spanish gold medalist and just 0.39 seconds behind the Japanese silver medalist.
Shahar Milfelder & Saleh Shahin
Israeli rowers Shahar Milfedler and Saleh Shahin paired up to win their first Paralympic medals in the PR2 mixed double sculls. Milfelder, 26, is a native of Moshav Beit Yitzchak in Israel who was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of bone cancer at 15 and had part of her pelvis removed. After their bronze medal win, she said she was thinking about the families of the six hostages who were confirmed dead only hours earlier.
“We had in mind to give pride to the country,” Milfelder said, according to the Israeli news site Mako. “I cried in the morning from the hard news and now I cry from the good news and send the biggest hug I can to the families of the hostages and to all the citizens of the State of Israel.”
Shahin, 41, is a Druze Israeli who was injured in a 2005 terrorist attack while serving in the Israeli army. He called representing Israel “a great honor… but it’s also a huge responsibility.”
Guy Sasson
Just three months after he won first first career Grand Slam at the 2024 French Open, Israeli wheelchair tennis player Guy Sasson returned to the same stadium to win his first career Paralympic medal, a bronze in the wheelchair tennis quad singles tournament. Sasson, 44, beat Turkey’s Ahmet Kaplan 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 in the bronze medal match.
“It was a match full of emotion and full of energy, and I imagine that it will set in soon that I’m an Olympic medalist,” Sasson told the Israeli news site Sport5 after his win. “If I managed to make people watching at home a little happy, especially the families of the fallen and the hostages, if this hope and this joy can give them a small smile on their faces, then I think we’ve done our part.”
Ian Seidenfeld
American table tennis star Ian Seidenfeld won his second career Paralympic medal in Paris, a bronze in the men’s singles MS6 competition. He had won gold in Tokyo.
Seidenfeld, 23, won his round of 16 and quarterfinal matches before losing in the semifinal. The Lakeville, Minn., native, who was born with Pseudoachondroplasia dwarfism, is coached by his father Mitchell Seidenfeld, a three-time Paralympian and four-time medalist.