The Olympics are all about national pride. But for Israel, particularly this year, the Olympics were more than that. They were a collective expression of survival, strength, and hope. Make that “The Hope,” “Hatikvah,” in the words of the national anthem.
For Israelis, these weren’t the Summer Olympics 2024, they were the Olympics of October 7 + 10 months. Since that dark day in October, we have been trying to come to terms with a series of horrific events: the Hamas invasion and mega-atrocity, when 1,200 people were murdered, many of them raped, mutilated, and burned to death; more than 250 abducted to Gaza, where some 115 remain, around 70 of them presumed still alive. Thousands have been wounded in the ongoing war and terrorist attacks. Some 80,000 Israelis have been internally displaced. And the threats of a massive Iranian attack, perhaps together with its terrorist proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, are ever-present.
All this means that Israelis desperately needed some escapism and good news. And the blue-and-white Team Israel provided it aplenty. It was “nachat” as we say in Hebrew, “nachas,” in Yiddish – a family pride and satisfaction.
When the Israeli rhythmic gymnastics team won the silver medal on Saturday, a stranger I met during a Shabbat afternoon stroll with a friend told us the good news. He judged correctly from our attire that we did not use our phones, radios, or TVs on the Sabbath and would appreciate the update. The last time we heard people passing on news like this was when Israel successfully rescued four hostages on Saturday, June 8.
The rhythmic gymnastics team’s win was the country’s seventh medal in the Paris Olympic Games and brought the overall tally over the years up to 20. “We won seven medals after what happened to us as a country on October 7,” said Gili Lustig, CEO of the Israel Olympic Committee, summing up the feelings of most citizens. “...This is the victory over what happened to us on October 7. We were all on a mission and there is nothing more symbolic than that.”
October 7 and the fate of the hostages are never far away. It wasn’t just the members of the rhythmic gymnastics team – who spoke uncannily in sync, after so many months of training together – who dedicated their win to the hostages and the fallen.
One of the most touching moments was seeing the heartbreak of Avishag Semberg (an Olympic bronze medalist from the Tokyo Olympics) who failed to make it to the podium this year. Through her tears, she sobbed: “I’d already prepared what I was going to say about the hostages.” This was how she perceived her loss – the loss of a chance to dedicate her win to the victims of October 7.
Dedicating performances to victims of October 7
Banned by Olympic rules from wearing yellow pins for the hostages, many of the female contestants and winners instead wore yellow ribbons in their hair.
Windsurfer Tom Reuveny, who won a gold medal, dedicated his win to his brother, a combat soldier serving in Gaza, describing him and his comrades as true heroes.
The other Israeli medalists were windsurfer Sharon Kantor, who won a silver; gymnast Artem Dolgopyat, who added a silver medal to his Tokyo gold; the female rhythmic gymnastics team; female judokas Raz Hershko and Inbar Lanir, who also won silver medals; and judoka Peter Paltchik, who won a bronze medal – and won Israeli hearts as he wiped the tears from the face of his coach Oren Smadja as they embraced. Smadja had accompanied the judo team to Paris despite losing his son Omer in battle in Gaza six weeks before the Olympics.
As The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon put it: “Their tribute to the fallen soldiers and the hostages at their moment of personal triumph is akin to breaking a glass under a wedding canopy at Jewish wedding ceremonies – remembrance of national tragedy even in times of greatest personal joy.”
SECURITY WAS tight for everyone, but especially for the Israeli team. It has been ever since the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich Massacre. It is shameful that the International Olympic Committee did not see fit to commemorate their deaths this year and the only ceremony was arranged by the Israeli Olympic Committee in the Israeli embassy in Paris.
I paid attention to the Olympic coaches, including Team Israel head and former judoka Yael Arad, who won the country’s first-ever Olympic medal, a bronze, in Barcelona (1992); Smajda who won Israel’s second medal, a bronze, shortly after Arad; Gal Fridman, Israel’s first gold medalist, who won the windsurfing competition in Athens (2004) and coached Reuveny; and Linoy Ashram, who won gold in rhythmic gymnastics in 2020, and coached the individual events while Ayelet Zussman, Ashram’s former coach, trained the team for the winning group event.
It was noteworthy that so much homegrown talent is nurturing the next generation. How much potential was brutally lost in Munich when the terrorists perpetrated their atrocity in 1972?
At the Munich Olympics, Palestinian terrorists from the Black September movement first held members of the Israeli team hostage in the Olympic Village, killing two; nine others were killed during a botched German rescue operation. The televised hostage holding – the theater of terror – put the Palestinian cause on the world map and made the world forever less safe. A line connects the Palestinian atrocity at Munich in 1972 to last week’s cancellation of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Vienna due to a thwarted ISIS attack.
The Palestinians could win the gold medal for chutzpah. Jibril Rajoub, a leading member of the Palestinian Fatah movement, was jailed in Israeli prisons for many years as a convicted terrorist before being released as part of a prisoner exchange in 1985. He now serves as head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and Palestinian Football Association. But he’s not a good sport. Ahead of the Paris Olympics, he sought to get the Israeli team banned. For him, the Olympic spirit includes the terrorism at Munich.
There was a small Palestinian delegation in the Paris games. My Facebook feed was filled with reports of runner Layla al-Masri, for example. Al-Masri, whose family name means “The Egyptian,” is a “Palestinian” born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she reportedly is currently an assistant coach at the local university’s women’s cross-country team. She was apparently invited by Rajoub to participate in the Palestinian team.
On the other hand, Israelis swiftly adopted as their own American gold-medalist wrestler Amit Elor, whose parents were born in Ashkelon and who has described Israel as her second home. Arad made no secret of trying to encourage her to make aliyah and compete in the Los Angeles games with Team Israel.
After her win, Elor spoke out in social media video clips against antisemitism saying: “Eighty years ago my grandparents survived the Holocaust, but antisemitism is still all around us...” Proudly displaying her gold medal, Elor declared: “My grandparents won. I won. Humanity will win. Never again.”
There were some anti-Israeli and antisemitic incidents at the Games, including the Algerian judoka who arrived at the weigh-in over the limit for his category thus avoiding competing against Israel’s Tohar Butbul. Tajikistan’s Nurali Emomali refused to shake Butbul’s hand after beating the Israeli, but in an act of karma, the cold shoulder was rewarded by a dislocated shoulder in a later fight with a Japanese competitor that left Emomali in tears.
A firm supporter of democratic Taiwan, I’m pained to see its treatment at the Olympics, where its anthem, flag, and even its name are banned, due to Chinese insistence that it not be recognized as an independent state. The Communist People’s Republic of China ousted and replaced Taiwan at the UN in 1971 and the lesson of what the Olympics calls “Chinese Tapei” is a sobering one.
In a story easy to overlook, Israeli competitive frisbee-playing teens last week were notified at the last minute that they had been banned from the 2024 Under 17 European Youth Ultimate Championships in Ghent, Belgium, as police could not guarantee their security following threats and vandalism. Another win for the Palestinian terrorists and their supporters in Europe.
The attempts to ban Israelis from international events ostensibly due to security threats should not be belittled – it’s a boycott measure in a different guise, punishing Israel for being the victim.
Meanwhile, the 28 members of the Israeli Paralympic team are preparing to bring us more pride in Paris, every team member already a winner in a country of survivors.