An Israeli man found criminally negligent following the collapse of a bridge at the 1997 Maccabiah Games resigned from Israel’s Olympic Committee. The Australian Jewish community, which suffered most in the tragedy at the opening ceremony to the 1997 Games, had been outraged that Maccabi Israel elected Yoram Eyal to represent it on the Olympic Committee. Eyal, chairman of the organizing committee for the 1997 games, was found criminally negligent for the role he played in commissioning the footbridge over the polluted Yarkon River. “I saw the mayhem the appointment had caused and I did not want it to become a major issue affecting this year’s Maccabiah,” Eyal told Ha’aretz.
A Season of Big Decisions. From the Knesset campaign to American midterms, Jewish communities are weighing what comes next. Help JTA keep delivering the deeper context.
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.
