To enlist Jewish youth of the United States with the youth of Europe and Palestine by participation in the world-wide Maccabee movement is the aim of an effort to be launched here.
At the heart of the organization campaign for a world-wide membership of athletes of the Jewish faith, is the hope that eventually not only Jewish intellect but Jewish brawn will become part of the total asset in the program to reinvigorate Palestine.
There are today thirteen years of tradition behind the Maccabee body which has units in about twenty-two nations. In the United States the movement has been neither coordinated nor successful.
A recent communication asking him to accept the generalship of a Maccabee movement in the United States was received from Lord Melchett by Nathan L. Goldstein, well-known attorney, on October 11. The English peer was chiefly responsible for the success of the movement in England and Palestine. Mr. Goldstein accepted the commission.
PLEDGE OF COOPERATION
Preliminary details were worked out by Mr. Goldstein who had a pledge of cooperation from the Jewish Welfare Board at a meeting November 8. The Board, which is a national organization of Jewish community centers, the Young Men’s Hebrew Associations and the Young Women’s Hebrew Associations, extended its hand in fellowship. The tentative committee assisting Mr. Goldstein includes Edward A. Norman, member of the American Economic Committee for Palestine, and Jacob Landau, director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The broad outlines of the project will be to win the concurrence of large sport organizations such as the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States and the American Olympic Committee, and of Jewish community centers throughout the country, use of whose facilities the Maccabees will seek to obtain.
100,000 MEMBERS SOUGHT
Mr. Goldstein is to invite committee members to attend a second preliminary conference next week. Today he will address the American Maccabee organization (the present only existing American unit which is to be the basis for the future body) at the Bronx Y.M.H.A. An enrollment of 100,000 is the goal of the membership drive to be launched. Lord Melchett will visit this country in 1934.
Such, in part, is the skeletonized plan of action under consideration by Mr. Goldstein. What is the message of Lord Melchett, the honorary president of the World Union of Maccabees? What are the activities slated for next year? What advantages are there in membership? How did the Maccabee Union have its origin?
LORD MELCHETT’S MESSAGE
In a special message to the Maccabi Ball held in the Dorcester Hotel, London, July 4, Lord Melchett states that the two points which are “highly indicative of the spirit and purpose of the movement” are the success Jews have attained in creating a national homeland and the “medieval persecution of Jewry which has flamed out in Germany.”
He then went on to say:
“The redemption of Israel must be accomplished by Israel. . . . The physical side of this task is in some measure no less important than the moral and intellectual; and in its determination for physical renaissance Jewry has turned to the Bible, its own history book, for inspiration.”
From events and personalities who lived 2,300 years ago and on a beginning made some thirty years old, the Maccabee movement takes its inspiration. In Berlin, arena for modern persecutions, the worldwide movement received new impetus in 1929 and the idea was conceived of holding a World Jewish Maccabiad in Palestine.
THE HURDLES
To prosecute plans for the great Hebrew Olympic games the pioneers of the movement had to use herculean effort so that many obstacles could be hurdled.
A stadium had to be built in Palestine. Players had to be sent to Tel Aviv from two dozen foreign countries. Plans for the games had to be made. Funds had to be raised.
Six steamers sailed from Mediterranean ports carrying 2,400 athletes. A considerable number of difficulties in connection with immigration restrictions in Palestine necessitated all kinds of safeguards. A few weeks before the athletes arrived in Tel Aviv, a stadium overlooking the great sand dunes of the Holy Land was constructed. With preparations completed and with the support of Great Britain which was represented by a large group of athletes, the first great world Maccabiad went on.
“As I conceive it,” said Lord Melchett, “it is the special mission of British Jews, privileged as they are in every direction, to assist their brethren in other countries who suffer in many cases under grave disadvantages, and to take a lead in that work of redemption and renaissance, which is the most striking and inspiring movement of our generation.”
DISCUSSES 1935 OLYMPIAD
Mr. Goldstein emphasized the importance of acquainting Jewish young men and women with the athletic records of Jewish youth in Europe and Palestine and of inspiring the Jewish youth of America to greater accomplishment in the general field of athletics. His goal is to win cooperation from at least 100,000 Jewish young people interested in athletics and Zionism.
In an interview he discussed projected plans for the second Olympiad to be held in Palestine in 1935. The events will include swimming, cycling, tennis, boxing and wrestling, fencing, football and basketball. The duration of the contests will be fourteen days. The final day will be devoted to social events. Maccabee organizations throughout the world have already started training and planning for the event. Judges are being trained, and the Lelewer School for Instructors is to be established in Palestine.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
