The Kibbitz
hung up. We fell out of contention on the last day: Jamaica jumped us by 0.1 seconds after they had bought a brand-new sled. We had beaten them through four of the eight races, but they then bought a brand-new sled for $100,000. To echo one of the people we ap- proached, they don’t see this actually as a problem in the Jewish communi- ty, not having Jews compete in sport at the highest level. It’s not a problem that they feel needs attention. So if people who are deeply enmeshed in sport culture can’t see where it fits within the Jewish cultural framework, mak- ing a systemic shift in the minds of parents is going to be very difficult. So the way that I’ve approached it is by taking a different tack: it’s not What can this provide for the Jew- ish culture? but What can it provide a human being? Many people have outlets of chess, they have outlets of reading, have outlets of art, they have outlets of music. For many kids, the best way to learn loss, goal setting, personal development, or to grow in life is through sport. And it has noth- ing to do with Jewish community and Jewish culture and Jewish values. Most of the activities you see Jewish people, especially more Orthodox people, doing are very much indi- vidual, whereas team sports still lag far behind. Is it because you’re often playing against non-Jewish teams and the Shabbat factor becomes an issue, or because it’s a much higher bar to commit to a team sport? I think that we should be far more represented in a sport like tennis, and I don’t think we are. My life’s ef- fort is to make people healthier, to get people involved in fitness and sport. That’s my passion, my love. Pursuing an athletic goal requires a bit of early intervention to instill
Even Jamaica? Jamaica is massively funded. Jamaica has hundreds of thousands of dollars. The movie [ Cool Runnings , about the Jamaican bobsled team] kind of makes it all up: they had donated sleds and equipment and all sorts of stuff. Israel doesn’t have one fraction of what that original Jamaican team had. It’s nearly impossible to knock off a legacy nation in bobsled because bobsled costs are six figures a year, at minimum. A $150,000 budget is a shoestring. And yet, every person I’ve ever approached about trying to save the bobsled team at various points has
said a version of the following: Have you asked the Krafts? Have you asked the Wilfs? Have you asked the Aron- sons? Have you asked, you know, ba- sically anyone Jewish that you can think of who’s been involved in sport? And the answer from every single one of those people that we’ve asked has been no. We had approached an NFL owner in 2021/22. We had this Arab/Druze/ Jewish team which was, at that point, painfully close to the Olympics, but I was really struggling to support it all. I said to him, We just need a new sled. And his wife laughed at us — legiti- mately laughed on the phone—and
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