"The Jewish people need to get closer together, and the Maccabiah Games are the ideal meeting place to do it,” says Amir Gissin, CEO of Maccabi World Union and organizer of the upcoming 2025 Maccabiah Games. Recently, the Magazine met with Gissin and Michael Siegal, president of Maccabi World Union, to discuss the forthcoming Maccabiah Games, how Maccabi World Union is combating antisemitism in sports, and Maccabi’s unique connection to young and unaffiliated Jews worldwide.
The Maccabiah Games are the world’s largest Jewish athletic competition and the second-largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics in terms of the number of athletes competing.
Gissin pointed out that while the first Maccabiah Games, held in 1932 [during the Nazi era], and the third Games, in 1950, the first to be held in the modern State of Israel, were the most significant, 2025’s upcoming Games will be the most meaningful.
“This will be the first opportunity for the Jewish people, from the Diaspora and from Israel, to get together in a significant way after Oct. 7. The Jewish people need to get closer to one another, and the Maccabiah Games are the ideal meeting place,” he said.
The gap that had existed between Israel and the Diaspora in recent years was changed by the Hamas massacre and kidnappings, he said, and Israelis and the worldwide Jewish community now recognize the importance of each other’s respective communities. “We feel that the next Maccabiah will be the climax of all parts of the Jewish people coming together, climbing out of the very depressed place that we were in.”
SIEGAL, WHOSE previous careers in Jewish communal life have included stints as chairman of Israel Bonds, the Jewish Federations of North America, and the Jewish Agency for Israel, said that the worldwide Maccabi movement, with its camps and clubs, is a welcoming place for members of the Jewish community who feel disconnected.
“It’s about Jews getting together, having fun, and espousing the philosophy of fair play and competition and family and community and joy by gathering in places around the world where otherwise Jews don’t gather. Because other than the synagogue, there’s really no place for them to go to gather. So they’ve created [these] enormous ‘camps’ and ‘country clubs.’”
Siegal explained that the thousands of participants who come to the Games are not there just to participate in athletic competitions: “I think that’s a misnomer, as everybody thinks we’re Jewish athletics, but they don’t understand that there’s a huge educational component to this. This is how they gather to build a Jewish community of common interest.”
Speaking of the concept of community as it relates to this year’s Games, which will take place from July 8 to July 22, Gissin said that the goal is to bring together 250,000 Israelis and visitors in a celebration of unity, not only at the athletic competitions but throughout various activities that will be taking place in the evenings at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.
Maccabiah officials expect approximately 10,000 athletes to participate in this year’s Maccabiah Games, the same number that participated in the 2022 Games. Israel’s team will comprise 3,000 athletes, and 7,000 will join from the Diaspora, with the US team traditionally the largest delegation from outside Israel.
Maccabi World Union is working assiduously to raise funds and bring as many people as possible to the Games this year, following the trying circumstances of the past year and a half. Gissin and Siegal pointed out that Maccabi World Union, as the only global Jewish sports organization, is uniquely positioned to speak on behalf of Jewish athletes around the world against antisemitism and on behalf of Israel.
Siegal said that most recently, Maccabi World Union brought former NBA players and professional soccer stars to Israel. Following Oct. 7, the organization twinned prominent athletes with the names of the hostages. In addition to these advocacy efforts, he said, Maccabi works to combat antisemitism in Europe.
Gissin explained: “The real fight against antisemitism is a coalition-building exercise. In the Jewish world, many times organizations are fighting over turf. We have [the] great luxury [of] being a monopoly.” Therefore, they are able to focus on “coalition-building.”
“When it comes to combating antisemitism in sports, as we are the one Jewish international sports organization, we feel that we can speak on behalf of all Jewish athletes – from kids in Great Britain who play soccer whose opponents refuse to play against them because they’re Jewish, to [participants in] an event where one hears antisemitic slurs against Israeli players in European teams.
Our voice will be heard,” Gissin continued. “We’re making our voice heard, but we always try to do it in conjunction with the teams and with other Jewish organizations because the most important thing is not to stand by yourself.”He recalled that during the attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam in November 2024, Maccabi Amsterdam opened a safe house for endangered Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
They sent volunteer drivers to transfer more than 600 of them from their hotels to the safe house, where they were fed and secured, had their plane tickets arranged, and were taken to the airport to return to Israel. “The fact that [wherever] you have a Jewish community and choose to [participate] in sports it is under the banner of Maccabi gives us the ability to respond in such a crisis,” he noted.
SIEGAL POINTED out that the World Maccabi Union is singular among Jewish organizations in that it has many young members, most of whom have only a minimal affiliation with the Jewish community. “What’s unique about us,” he said.
“Is the fact that we have what every organization is looking for – young people who are otherwise disconnected from the Jewish community. We have 450,000 people who belong to Maccabi clubs. Of that number, 80% are under age 35. And of that number, 60% have no other affiliation with their Jewish community. This is how they get their Jewish spirit – through the competition provided by Maccabi sports camps and family education.”
If Maccabi can engage these young people beyond the world of sports, they will have succeeded. While it is challenging to engage young people in Jewish causes, Gissin stressed that it provides a fascinating example of how World Maccabi has fostered identification with Judaism at the Maccabiah Games and continues to do so.
For most of the 7,000 athletes from the Diaspora, this summer will be their first time visiting Israel. “But there’s always a large group of people,” he explained, “for whom this is the first Jewish event they [have] ever attended because they never had a bar or bat mitzvah."
"At every Maccabiah Games, one of the most moving events is a mass bar and bat mitzvah ceremony at the Western Wall, with over 300 athletes who have never celebrated their bar or bat mitzvahs. Three hundred people come escorted by 3,000 athletes from their delegations.”
He said, “This is a life-changing experience. This is how people find their Judaism and the sense of belonging that they never had and never felt the need for. But after you [participate in] a mass bar/bat mitzvah at the Western Wall, you will probably experience your Judaism differently than you experienced it before.”
The Maccabi movement is growing in the Jewish world, asserted Gissin and Siegal. “Maccabi is a great unifier of the Jewish people, Gissin added. “We’re apolitical, and we don’t have a religious affiliation. We’re trying to be a home for everyone who’s interested in sports and wellness and Jewish education.”
Siegal summed up the Maccabi experience: “Within the education component of what we do, it’s much more than Jews playing games. It’s about building a community of young people to sustain the Jewish people forever.”
This article was written in cooperation with Maccabi World Union.