As Olympics Near Their Close, Life in Beijing Goes On
By Dan L.
Looking up at the sky tonight, I could see stars glittering. When I mentioned this to my neighbor, she remarked that the government must be thrilled, because stars are visible above Beijing about as often as the Olympics come to town. I told her that the local Chabad rabbi would probably appreciate the great weather, too. But as she had never heard of the “three stars rule” or Shabbat, I imagine it was lost in translation.
So much has happened in Beijing over these last few weeks, from records being broken to national superstars breaking hearts. Ask Chinese though to tell you about what happened in South Ossetia while their countrymen and women were winning the most gold medals, and they will probably shrug their shoulders.
It’s been all Olympics all the time. Rarely does the state media cut from a gymnast to a Russian soldier or a hungry refugee. Nobody seems to mind, because even as the glory and flags and grinning athletes have made the Chinese smile and cheer, they are too busy trying to make a living and feed their families to think much about what their media is or isn’t telling them. Speaking with locals, they are eager to know how you and their other “foreign friends” have enjoyed Beijing, what events you have seen and if it is easy for Chinese to visit your country. But few have the money to go abroad for vacation or to cheer on their athletes in Vancouver, London and beyond. For them, this is the closest they will get to the Olympic spirit, even if they couldn’t afford tickets and don’t know the flags that appear on screen.
In the Chinese press, China is listed first in the medal count, even though at the time of writing the U.S. has more medals in total. “As long as we win I am happy,” said a young Chinese journalist today over coffee. What of the possibly underage gymnasts or the media censorship following Liu Xiang’s disappearance from the Bird’s Nest earlier this week? The young journalist had an answer for that, too — one I didn’t expect to hear. “The world just can’t handle China winning,” she said. “It’s frustrating when you’re surrounded by so many sore losers.
Taking a sip of her Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccino, she added, “Luckily there are a billion Chinese, so in the end, who cares what everyone else thinks?”
August 22, 2008, 1:02pm
Beijing's Bagels Taste Like Brooklyn's
By Dan L.
It’s been two weeks since the Olympics began, and Westerners here are getting rather fed up with noodles, dumplings and rice. Even the bread here can taste strange. For Jews, or anyone who has tasted a freshly baked New York bagel, the rumors of a bagel shop in Beijing circulated around hotel lobbies, tour buses and the Olympic Green have become somewhat of a fixation here. A few days ago, an article appeared on the New York Times website that sent those who could access the site here running to hail a cab, yelling “beigu,” 贝谷, the Chinese word for the holed-bread, which means “precious wheat.”
Hopefully, they’ll arrive at Mrs. Shanen’s, which is owned by a Bay Ridge-raised Chinese-American entrepreneur, Lejen Chen, who brought the recipe to China to remind herself of New York.
Globalization tastes good, as Chen imports the wheat flour from America, the sugar from Korea and the yeast from France. The salt and the water comes from China. The bagels come in 26 flavors, but poppy seed isn’t among them. That’s because the poppy seeds are illegal (something about China and opium wars)
Still, the influx of Olympic visitors has led to huge demand for bagels. In the week before the Olympics commenced, Mrs. Shanen’s baked 9,000 bagels — as much as in a typical month.
The Times reports:
An interesting thing is how Ms. Chen’s staff chooses to eat them. It is not obvious to them that bagels should be limited to being cut in half and spread with cream cheese or butter.
Ms. Chen says the workers will slice up the bagels into little strips and stir-fry them in a way similar to noodles. “They would slice it and slice it again,” she said. The bagel’s chewiness allows it to absorb flavor without becoming too soggy. “They tried it and it was very good, stir fried with cabbage and sometimes bean sprouts.”
August 21, 2008, 7:26am
Spitz vs. Phelps: A 'Tie'?
By Dan L.
Mark Spitz has been questioned repeatedly over how he feels now that Michael Phelps has more medals than he does. Holding up the latest cover of Sports Illustrated, featuring a grinning Phelps wearing his eight gold medals around his neck — a re-creation of Spitz’s famous seven-gold-medal pose from 1972 — the elder champion smiled and commended the 2008 phenomenon. But he couldn’t resist giving a “competitive” answer when asked who he thought was the faster swimmer, saying:
“I think that the relationship between people that are great is they have a common thread of knowing how to beat their competitors and they know how to constantly be in shape and in top form,” Spitz told the Daily News.
“If that’s the case, I’d know everything about how to beat Michael,” he said. “He’d also know everything to beat me. We’d have to tie.”
August 20, 2008, 1:38pm
Israeli-American Misses Second Chance at Medal But Savors Second Chance at Life
By Dan L.
What must it have been like for Rami Zur today, the American-turned-Israeli-turned-US team kayaker, when he found himself eliminated from the Olympics after placing seventh in the men’s kayak single 1,000 meters race? Surely there was some despair and anger. But could there also have been a smile? A chuckle perhaps?
Zur, who was born in America and adopted as a baby by an Israeli family and grew up on a kibbutz near the Kinneret, probably felt a terrible sense of deja vu when history repeated itself this afternoon. Playing again for the US thanks to his dual citizenship, Zur was knocked out of the semifinals in the same events at the Athens Games four years ago, his second Olympics after competing for Israel in Sydney. But that’s where the Groundhog Day scenario ends.
Not long after Athens, Zur slipped poolside and fell into the shallow end, surfacing seemingly unscathed, only to find out days later that he had broken his neck and could have been paralyzed, according to news reports.
In the long journey to recovery, complete with screws and a titanium plate to fuse two of his vertebrae, Zur found his strength and healing in his kayak. Apparently the swift movement aided his rehabilitation and he was soon back at the paddle months after his accident.
For the former Israeli soldier, life was never the same, and his being able to return to the Olympics after such a close call is in many ways victory enough. After all, there’s always 2012.
Read more about Zur’s Jewish past and stunning recovery here, and watch him in action below:
August 20, 2008, 11:58am
Israeli Wins Olympic Medal, Politicans Fawn
By Dan L.
Across Israel today, Jews of varying political stripes breathed a sigh of relief and even shed tears of joy. No, President Ehud Olmert didn’t step down yet. Something better.Israeli windsurfer Shahar Zubari sailed to a bronze medal today after coming in second place in his last race of the 2008 Olympic games in Qingdao. It was Israel’s first medal of the Beijing games and its seventh of all time. Such a rare victory earned Zubari a congratulatory phone call from Olmert, according to Haaretz:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Zubari after the race to congratulate him on his win. “I couldn’t help but be impressed by your coolness, that soulful silence of yours, and the inner feelings that caused you to secure us a medal,” Olmert said.
“You have no idea how exciting it was when I saw you waving that flag. Know that you have brought many tears of joy to Israel,” he added.
After a nerve-racking start that left him lagging behind the pack, when, according to Ynet, the racers were forced to head back to the starting line due to a disqualification by the Greek surfer — who lost 20 points (and with whom Zubari has clashed in the past) — the Israeli was able to cruise to the lead; finishing the crucial final race — which allows for a double score — in second place, ranking third overall.
Zubari’s first words on winning the bronze were “I did it!”
Shimon Peres, reprising his role as poet-in-Presidential residence had the following words of praise for Zubari:
“We in Israel almost mourned in a sea of desperation, and you took us out of there to a new dawn.”
August 19, 2008, 2:24pm
Israel Commemorates the Munich Massacre in Beijing
By Dan L.
Three decades after the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, this year’s Israeli athletic delegation joined Israeli diplomats and other Jews in commemorating that terrible loss this morning here in Beijing in an event sponsored by the Israeli embassy and the Israel Olympic Committee.
According to Haaretz, hundreds came to the event, including representatives of Israel’s athletic delegations, and Israel’s science, culture and sport minister, Raleb Majadele, who spoke of his friends among the athletes murdered in Germany.
What is troubling to learn is that the International Olympic Committee has refused to hold any official commemoration of the horrific event in the past 36 years.
JTA quotes the secretary-general of the Israeli Olympic Committee, Ephraim Zinger, who gave this answer as to why the IOC has steadfastly refused to acknowledge or commemorate the murders despite Israel’s raising the issue at every meeting with the IOC.
“Probably they are concerned about the reaction of those who will disagree with a memorial like this,” Zinger said. “There are 205 NOCs [national Olympic committees] participating in the Olympics, and there are more than a few dozen that will strongly disagree with this kind of event.”
August 19, 2008, 10:44am
Beijing's Chabad Rabbi Helps China See the Light
By Dan L.
On my flight from Newark to Beijing a few weeks ago, I noticed a young Hasidic man davening in tefillin. The plane was almost completely packed with Chinese, who must have had no clue what he was doing bowing while wrapped in leather. As one of the few other Jews on the flight, I approached him at baggage claim to ask him the halacha on davening when flying through different time zones, especially when it was daylight the entire trip (which happens when flying over the North Pole). He told me that, in fact, one doesn’t have to wrap tefillin, but he wanted to anyway, just to be sure he fulfilled the mitzvah.
He also told me he was the brother-in-law of Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, the Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi in Beijing and official Olympic rabbi, and that he had a number of Jewish prayer books and Bibles bound for the Lubavitch outpost. Freundlich, he said, had procured the necessary permits for him to bring them into China — which generally forbids the import of sacred texts from abroad — and was waiting for him past the customs area with some local officials.
Ha’aretz has a fascinating piece today about the Olympic obstacle course Freundlich has faced in the lead-up to and during the games. Some of the highlights include:
“The Chinese knew that according to Olympics bylaws they are required to provide a synagogue and kosher food, and they knew there would be a rabbi, but since Judaism is not one of the religions recognized by the Chinese, they didn’t really know how to operate,” Freundlich said.
“Only after I made it clear to them that I understood my appointment was not an official government appointment did the Chinese agree to meet with me,” he added.
When Freundlich wanted to bake challah for Shabbat, the organizing committee deviated from its stringent rules and allowed him to bring in food. The Chinese sent supervisors to accompany him while he baked. They photographed every step of the process. They took samples to be tested in a lab, and had the rabbi sign an affidavit attesting to the hygiene of the baking process.
In my conversations with Freundlich, he has stressed repeatedly how accommodating the Chinese authorities have been toward the Jewish community in recent years and during the Olympics. Evangelicals, meanwhile, are not having as much success here in Beijing.
August 18, 2008, 2:08pm
Rabbi Heads to Beijing for Some Face Time With China's Leaders
By Dan L.
First it was Presidents George W. Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy and Shimon Peres coming to Beijing for the Olympics. Now, it’s Rabbi Arthur Schneier.
According to a press release, the founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which promotes religious freedom and human rights, will be fanning himself in the stands at that impending propaganda sequel known as the Olympic closing ceremony on Sunday. Schneier is also planning to rub elbows with some of the Chinese government’s anonymous head-honchos, including Vice Premier Hui Liangyu and Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi. He must have a packed schedule, since Buddhist, Daoist, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim leaders are on the schmooze list as well. Schneier intends to discuss the state of human rights and religious freedom (or the lack of it) in China.
How much he will accomplish remains to be seen. In recent weeks, scores of would-be protesters have been detained, minorities have been terrorized and thousands of poor workers have been banished from Beijing.
As head of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, Scheier led the first inter-faith delegation to China back in 1981 and was one of three American clergy members picked by President Bill Clinton to initiate the first official dialogue on religious freedom with President Jiang Zemin and other top Chinese leaders. Not surprisingly, there is room for more conversation.
August 18, 2008, 11:43am
Israel's Olympic Duds Go From Beijing to the Racks
By Dan L.
Oh, to be a gold-medal Olympian. Michael Phelps’s record-breaking victories this Olympics could be worth between $50 and $100 million in endorsements, and it’s quite possible that Speedo and Nike may soon enter a bidding war over the rights to clothe the lightning-fast swimmer’s body.
Israel’s athletes, meanwhile, do not carry that kind of endorsement power. Perhaps it’s because Phelps won more golds in just this Olympic games than the Jewish state has won medals ever.
Still, making it to Beijing does count for something in Israel, at least in the malls. Castro, the apparel chain known for blaring cheesy euro-pop and pushing sexy clothing on the Jewish masses in seemingly every shopping center from Afula to Tel Aviv to Eilat, has launched an “Olympic Collection,” having itself fit the Israeli team in uniforms of white and blue. “The colors were inspired by the national flag,” Castro’s designer told The Jerusalem Post.
So look on the bright side: Even if the team fails to win a medal at this Olympics, at least they’ll look like a million bucks. Or is that shekels?
August 18, 2008, 3:13am
Jewish Ping-Pong Diplomacy Takes Beijing
By Dan L.
On these hot August days and nights, Beijingers often take to the parks, squares and sidewalks to socialize, dance and compete in their own “Olympic Village.” For many, the only sport worth sweating for is table tennis, known here as ”pingpang.” Amid the buzzing cicadas and jingle of bike bells, the smack of paddles hitting plastic hangs in the air, interspersed with cheers and groans.
But not everyone playing in Beijing is Chinese.
When David Zalcberg of Australia approaches the tennis table on Tuesday, he will face more than just Vietnam’s Kien Quoc Doan in the men’s table tennis singles preliminaries.
Zalcberg, 27, has suffered injuries and accidents in his 15-year career, including the 1997 Maccabiah Games disaster, when four Australians died and hundreds were injured in a footbridge collapse. And then there was the back injury and in January 2007 a bicycle crash that broke his arm in two places.
“The doctors said I would never play again,” he said as he was set to depart for Beijing, where he is competing in the singles and doubles table tennis competitions.
Speaking of doctors, Zalcberg is in his final year of medical school, where he does eight-hour rounds in his hometown of Melbourne when he isn’t training for the Olympics.
In Athens four years ago, Zalcberg placed 17th in the doubles competition, and he won a gold medal in Oceania’s 2004 games. He rose to 37th place in the world at the 2004 World Teams Championships, and in 2007 he ranked as Australia’s fourth best male table tennis player.
Zalcberg is a graduate of Mount Scopus Memorial College, the first co-educational Jewish day school in Melbourne, and was named Maccabi Australia’s 2007 sportsman of the year.
Given the prominence and history of table tennis in China, Zalcberg gets a special thrill out of playing the national sport here.
According to the LA Times:
The game is taken very seriously in China. National champions such as Wang Hao and Wang Liqin command as much celebrity as basketball’s Yao Ming. President Hu Jintao told reporters this month that if he could be an Olympic athlete he would surely pick table tennis as his sport.
Since table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988, the Chinese have taken home 16 of the 20 gold medals.
Not only do the Chinese rule at international meets, they are often competing against former countrymen. All four U.S. players here for the Beijing Games were born in China, including one who won a silver medal previously – for China.
Click here to watch Zalcberg play Chinese table-tennis players in the parks of Beijing and discuss the road to the 2008 Olympics.
August 17, 2008, 12:01pm
Smooth Sailing (for Some) Jewish Olympians
By Dan L.
It was smooth sailing ahead for kosher Kiwi Jo Aleh of New Zealand on Saturday, when she came in second place in the Laser Radial event, taking the overall lead from Anna Tunnicliffe of the United States, the world’s top-ranked woman Laser Radial sailor. Aleh previously came in fourth and had a trio of second-place finishes, and was able to waive her worst score of 22nd place. To win the gold, she must stay at or near the top.
The Jewish state was not so lucky this weekend. Israel’s gold hopes faded on Sunday when windsurfer Shahar Tzuberi fell to third place overall in the RS:X men’s windsurfing competition after coming in sixth in the sixth race and 19th in the seventh sail.
According to reports, Zubari filed an appeal against the seventh sail’s results, claiming that Greece’s Nikolaos Kaklamanakis collided with him, but the appeal was denied.
In the women’s RS:X windsurfing competition, Maayan Davidovich of Israel came in 14th in her sixth sail and is now ranked 13th overall.
August 17, 2008, 11:08am
Jewish Jock Helps Phelps Make Olympic History
By Dan L.
Poor Mark Spitz. The middle-aged motivational speaker and former swimmer can no longer be “considered the Greatest Olympic athlete of all-time,” now that Michael Phelps has won eight gold medals in one Olympics this morning, surpassing Spitz’s seven in 1972.
Spitz can actually thank a fellow Jew for this development. Jason Lezak, who won bronze in the 100-meter freestyle but, more importantly, swam the anchor leg in the 4x100 freestyle relay that helped push the U.S. team — including Phelps — to gold on Monday, pulled a golden repeat today.
Following U.S. teammates Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen and Phelps, Lezak dove into lane four to swim the anchor leg, or final position, of the Men’s 4 x 100 meter medley relay, and touched the finish .7 seconds ahead of the second-place Australians, to give his team a record time of 3:29.34.
“I was thinking, ‘Don’t blow the lead,’” Lezak said. “I was really nervous going in because anything can happen in a one race … I knew Eamon [Sullivan of Australia] was definitely capable of catching me. I wanted to take it out hard and finish as strong as I could.”
The race gave Phelps his record-breaking eighth gold medal for the 2008 games.
August 16, 2008, 11:21pm
Older Female Jewish Athletes Rise and Fall
By Dan L.
Two Jewish women are feeling the agony of defeat this morning, but one will still be going home with a medal.U.S. swimmer Dara Torres lost the gold medal in Sunday’s 50-meter freestyle by one-hundredth of a second to Germany’s Britta Steffen. Torres, 41, who converted to Judaism and has a Jewish father, finished the race in 24.07 seconds — just behind Steffen’s victorious 24.06.
But Torres’s silver was a remarkable achievement considering she had hung up her goggles a second time after the 2000 Sydney Games. Then, after becoming a mother for the first time two years ago, Torres felt the urge to get back in the water, intent to prove that middle age can still mean front runner.
Mission accomplished — especially since Torres beat out a competitor who could be her daughter: Cate Campbell of Australia — who is 16 — claimed the bronze in 24.17.
Today was the last day of swimming at the Water Cube, but Torres’s day wasn’t done: She was scheduled to anchor the Americans in the 400-medley relay, going for the 12th medal of her career.
Now, for more heartbreaking developments:
Deena Kastor, whom I wrote about in an earlier post, dropped out of the women’s marathon this morning after she broke her foot. Kastor, who was the first U.S. marathon Olympic medalist in 20 years back in 2004, when she won the bronze, dropped to one knee and held her right foot at about the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) mark. She got up and tried to walk it off but dropped back down again and was forced to give up.
“I felt a pop in my foot. I couldn’t stand on it,” Kastor said. “I didn’t expect to be finishing the marathon on a bus.”
August 16, 2008, 10:53am
In China, Did Shimon Peres Redraw Israel's Borders? (UPDATED)
By Dan L.
The sight of President Shimon Peres of Israel sitting in the stands in the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, last Friday night had Hebrew talking heads buzzing. The Jewish and Israeli press has made much of Peres being the first Israeli president to attend the Olympic games since Israel began attending the international competition in 1952, as well as the special arrangements made so that the 85-year-old head of state could stay at a hotel within walking distance of the stadium, to avoid violating Shabbat. He was also reported to have been only one of eight world leaders invited to meet with China’s President Hu Jintao.
Peres is no longer in Beijing, where he left behind Israel’s delegation of 43 athletes to sweat, swim and fend for themselves. While the president’s brief stint in China is no longer making headlines in Israel, he remains a media darling in China’s state-run media.
China Daily ran a puff piece on Thursday in the paper’s “opinion” page entitled “Peres Says it All with Poems,” which supposedly recounts an interview with the head of the Jewish state. It turns out that besides spending decades working Israel’s levers of power, the octogenarian is also a poet, and, luckily for us, the paper includes a poem he wrote “wishing for peace and harmony at the Beijing Olympics.”
Birds of all feathers/ come and sing together/ escape frozen orders/ and fly above the borders/ dismantle the old scheme/ take off with the great dream/ dream of harmony and glory/ for all alike, black and white/ poor and rich of equal right/ run and leap, hit and throw/ dance and swim and row/ you are all the best/ from east to west/ win, don’t kill and if you lose don’t hate/ hope exists both now and late/ bring home an olive branch/ your newly born have a chance/ to be free and strong, at their nest/ in Beijing we learn what is best
Wow. No wonder he’s stuck to politics.
But it is the interview that follows that really raises eyebrows.
August 16, 2008, 5:24am
For Shabbat in Beijing, A Bar Mitzvah and Kosher Bird's Nest
By Dan L.
This morning, as Michael Phelps was preparing to tie Mark Spitz’s record seven gold medals in a single Olympic Games, another young American was in Beijing as well, also getting ready for the biggest day of his life so far. Just a few hours after Phelps accomplished his dream, Isaac Shapiro stood up and approached the bimah, where he read the haftorah of Parshat Ve’etchanan as a bar mitzvah. Both have been practicing daily for this moment — to arrive in Beijing and stand before friends, family and, yes, the Almighty — and perform. Yes, it’s true Shapiro doesn’t have 36 years of Olympic weight on his shoulders. He has thousands. Jews were coming of age long before Pierre de Coubertin began thinking about rings.
Sitting among Jews from around the world today in Beijing’s Chabad House with Shapiro and his family, who came all the way from Chicago to daven (okay, some Olympic events were on the schedule, too), it struck me how much the Jewish community lives and breathe the Olympic motto of “One World One Dream.” Numerous accents, languages and professions packed the room, yet for those few hours, we were just Jews, praying together with the same words in one language.
And of course, it’s not every day that a Lubavitcher rabbi can go from pontificating on the power of God’s voice to the power of the U.S. beach volleyball team’s arms.
After the service, the mass of tourists, businessmen and students headed to Dini’s Restaurant for Shabbat lunch. We began with kiddush and ended with a cake shaped like the Bird’s Nest. I spoke with a Jewish Chinese man from Kaifeng who lives in New Jersey and listened to the rabbi welcome the Olympic crowd to a city in which he has transformed the Jewish community in seven years.
Everyone had an Olympic story to tell: The observant Israeli Taekwondo athlete who needed an emergency delivery of kosher food to her room in the Olympic Village at 11 p.m. last week (“She said she needed protein”). The Chinese staff member at the Westin Hotel who knew exactly what was required of a Shabbos Goy (“Would you like to take the stairs or should I take you up in the elevator”), and the rabbi’s negotiations with Chinese Olympic officials over his role as Official Olympic rabbi (“They wanted me to stay in the Olympic Village for Shabbat, but I had to read Eicha for Shimon Peres!”)
How incredible that we could share them together at a Shabbat lunch table in Beijing.
August 15, 2008, 1:31pm
Another Israeli Record-Breaker, Another Political Sore Loser
By Dan L.
Israeli swimmer Anna Gostomelsky broke an Israeli record today when she came in first place in the eighth heat of the 50-meter freestyle preliminaries in 25.23 seconds. While Gostomelsky failed to qualify for the semifinals, falling 16 milliseconds short of the 16th spot in the contest, she was thrilled with her results. “I’m very pleased, not only with myself but with the whole team,” she said. “We were the most brilliant team here.”
At 27, Gostomelsky is the oldest swimmer on the Israeli team, returning to compete in the Olympics after a lackluster showing in the 2004 Athens games.
But politics again threatens to eclipse Israeli athleticism, and Gostomelsky’s achievement, in this Olympics, as Syria’s Bayan Jumah, who was supposed to swim in the lane next to Gostomelsky, chose not to compete.
Gostomelsky wasn’t fazed by the pullout though. “I didn’t notice that the lane beside me was empty,” she said. “It’s her problem.”
August 15, 2008, 12:22pm
For Jewish Marathoner, Praying Fast and Steady Wins the Race
By Dan L.
Today’s Beijing blue sky and sunshine must have prompted Deena Kastor to sigh with relief. On Sunday (Beijing time, Saturday night in the U.S.), Kastor, a Jew from Northern California who is considered America’s best female marathoner, will compete in the women’s marathon, and having won the bronze at Athens in 2004 — the first medal for an American marathoner in 20 years — she’ll want to breathe easy when she arrives at the starting line. At 35, Kastor holds the American record with her time of 2:19:36, run during her win in the 2006 London Flora marathon over 26.2 miles. In 2006, Track & Field News magazine selected Kastor as the world’s top women’s marathoner.
Kastor has made it clear that she is running for the top spot this weekend, saying, “I want a gold medal… There is nothing more I want than to see the flag being raised and the national anthem being played. I can’t think of a better gift to my country that has been so supportive of me.”
Watch Kastor talk about her path to the Olympics -her third- at the press conference following her win at the Olympic team trials in April:
August 15, 2008, 11:19am
Jews Sail Toward Medals in Qingdao
By Dan L.
Jo Aleh is used to standing out from the crowd. She is the top-ranked New Zealand female in her one-woman sailing event, and number four in the world. And being the daughter of an Israeli father and Kiwi mother who made aliyah, Aleh is also the only Jewish athlete on the Kiwi Olympic team, and a first-timer at the games, having won a silver in the pre-Olympics regatta in 2007.
Today, she sailed into second place, finishing fourth overall in the Laser Radial event, putting her in spitting position of first place in tomorrow’s race in Qingdao’s Fushan Bay. This is a huge turn of fortune for Aleh, as she had finished in 22nd place in the opening race. Aleh’s accomplishments are all the more noteworthy given the fact that there are fewer than 10,000 Kiwi Jews, 0.2 percent of New Zealand’s four million people.
In other Jewish sailing news, Nike Kornicki and Vered Buskila, Israel’s representatives in the women’s 470 Class sailing competition finished their two races on Friday in third and first place. The results place the pair in third place overall, with a handy lead over their competitors in the race for a medal.
On the men’s side, Israel’s Shahar Zubari, of Eilat, is still in first place. The windsurfing sabra holds a solid lead at the end of five races — despite coming in 17th in today’s race. Zubari was able to waive his worst result, and since he previously came in first in one race and third in another, he appears to be the Israeli delegation’s only real hope for an Olympic medal.
August 15, 2008, 3:28am
Hitting the Olympic Mat, Jewish Wrestler Finds Victory in Defeat
By Dan L.
Yesterday, I watched Ari Taub, a 37-year-old Jewish lawyer from Canada, take on a worthy opponent and 16 years of personal demons in the 120-kilogram category Greco-Roman wrestling competition at the Chinese Agricultural University Gym.
While Taub was eliminated after losing his first match 2-1, 4-1 to Mihaly Deak-Bardos of Hungary, his Sisyphean journey to the Olympics is reminiscent of the trials of another Jewish wrestler.
At 6’3” and 269 pounds, Taub has suffered more than just cauliflower ear to reach the Olympics. Taub is Canada’s first Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler since 1996 — a worthy achievement (even if he did last only four minutes on the mat yesterday), since his Olympic wait started 16 years ago, when he was named to the 1992 Olympic team, but lost his position in a wrestle-off. To make matters worse, Taub was later diagnosed with bone spurs, a condition that doctors said could leave him paralyzed if he continued wrestling, so he dropped the sport and headed to law school. It was only in 2000 that he found out he had been misdiagnosed, during treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. Jumping back into his singlet, Taub won the Canadian championship in Greco-Roman in 2004, only to learn he wasn’t eligible for the Athens games because he had competed in too few international bouts.
August 13, 2008, 12:18pm
Mocking Stereotypes for 'Olympic' Glory
By Dan L.
While the world is glued to Michael Phelps’s latest athletic feats and people are still taking about Jewish wonder Jason Lezak, who on Monday swam the fastest leg in the history of the 4x100-meter Olympic freestyle relay, the closest most American Jews are to making a chlorinated splash this summer is at sleep-away camp, a Jewish Community Center or shul.
Not one to shy (or, rather, Shylock) away from Jewish stereotypes, athletic or otherwise, Heeb Magazine plunges back into that virtual kiddie pool known as YouTube with its second satirical Jew-lympic event, this time promising not the glory of gold, but of copper.
August 13, 2008, 7:33am
Hebrew-Speaking Chinese Look West to Zion
By Dan L.
A few months ago I got into an elevator in one of the new glass towers that dot Beijing’s Central Business District, joining two Chinese men and a foreigner for the ride down to the lobby. As we descended, the three men began talking, and for a second I thought my ears were deceiving me, as the language they were speaking was Hebrew. I turned around in shock, and one of the Chinese, seeing the look of surprise on my face, asked me, “Ata midaber ivrit?” (“Do you speak Hebrew?”).
“Yes,” I responded in that language, “but I didn’t expect to hear Chinese speak Hebrew in China.” He chuckled and then told me that he had spent four years working as an agricultural laborer on a moshav not far from Haifa. It was there that he had picked up the language. His friend had a similar story. They had returned to China a year ago, when their Israeli work visas expired. Despite the long hours and hard labor on the farms, they wanted to return to Israel, but could not afford the thousands of dollars required for visa permits. “Chaval,” he said. “It’s a pity.”
As Israelis pour into Beijing for the Olympic Games, and more Chinese tourists are set to make the trip to Israel, following a joint agreement signed by the two countries last year, those thousands of Chinese who for years have headed to the Jewish state seeking work in agriculture and construction are getting little recognition for their contribution to friendly Sino-Israeli relations.
When I volunteered for the Tel Aviv-based labor-rights organization Kav La’Oved, known in English as The Worker’s Hotline, a few years ago, I met Chinese who were suffering in silence from abuse, as well as illegal wage and passport confiscation at the hands of Israeli employers. Many feared deportation for fleeing such conditions, or because the Israeli government thought they were in the country illegally. While not always the case, it appears that some Chinese workers in Israel are still trapped by these problems.
August 12, 2008, 1:40am
Greatest Jewish Olympian Sulks Over Losing the Champion Spotlight
By Dan L.
Usually it’s Jewish mothers who boast and brag about their children’s accomplishments. A big ego on a nice Jewish boy, however, is rather unbecoming.Mark Spitz — who is “considered the Greatest Olympic athlete of all-time” and “is synonymous with excellence,” according to his Web site — may be about to have his record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics, set during the 1972 games, broken by fellow American swimmer Michael Phelps.
Spitz, who is possibly the greatest living Jewish sports legend, has been pouting over the fact that he wasn’t officially invited to the Beijing Olympics.
“I never got invited. You don’t go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am,” Spitz,58, told AFP.
“I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That’s almost demeaning to me. It is not almost — it is.”
August 11, 2008, 6:30pm
For the More, uh, Bookish of the Tribe, Olympic Rings Made of Bagels
By Dan L.
It’s no surprise that Jews from Brooklyn to Berkeley get a thrill out of seeing their fellow Yids competing for and winning medals at the Olympics. In Judaism, 10 Jewish men (and women) usually form a minyan, rather than a team.
So it was only a matter of time before the more irreverent of the Chosen bunch tackled Jewish athletic aptitude (or the lack of it). Heeb Magazine pokes fun at the “One World One Dream” adrenaline rush with sporting events for the rest of us, complete with ritual garb:
August 11, 2008, 3:12am
Jews Swim Like Fish: Gold and Silver for U.S. and an Israeli First
By Dan L.
Jews are making waves at Beijing’s Water Cube these days.
Jewish swimmers Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale were half of the U.S. 4x100-meter freestyle men’s relay team that won the gold today, smashing records along the way.
“I knew I was going to have to swim out of my mind,” said anchor Lezak, who wrapped up the race for Team U.S.A. with what one sportswriter called “arguably the greatest swim in American history.”
Dara Torres helped the US women’s team relay to silver. At 41, Torres is the oldest swimmer of either gender to ever win an Olympic medal.
Torres and Lezak, 32, are the two oldest swimmers in their respective genders for the U.S. this Olympics.
Torres’s father is Jewish, and she converted to Judaism before marrying an Israeli surgeon.
Israel is also swimming into the record books. Nimrod Shapira-Bar Or splashed into first place in the the 200-meter freestyle qualifying match, becoming the first Israeli swimmer to advance to the semi-finals.
“I’m more than happy. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was not sent here for nothing,” said Shapira Bar-Or, who was the last to join the Israeli team.
Guy Barnea also set a new Israeli record while getting wet in the National Aquatic Center, advancing to the semi-finals in the 100-meter backstroke category, and got a congratulatory “yashar koach” phone call from Shimon Peres for his achievement.
August 10, 2008, 6:54am
Olympic Fever Makes Iranian Swimmer 'Ill,' But a Countryman Hugs an Israeli
By Dan L.
Politics broke the surface of Oympics swimming yesterday when Iran’s Mohammad Alirezaei pulled out of the men’s 100m breaststroke heats, and the Olympics, just minutes before he was due to compete against Israel’s Tom Be’eri. According to Iranian’s state-media reports, Alirezaei fell ill and was carried to a Beijing hospital.
But Iran has a history of forfeiting Olympic contests rather than compete against Israel — and initially citing health reasons as the reason.
At the Athens Olympics in 2004, Iran’s judo world champion, Arash Miresmaeili, refused to compete against Ehud Vaks of Israel in the first round, later telling the official Iranian news agency that although he had trained hard in the hope of winning the gold, “I refused to play against an Israeli rival to sympathize with the oppressed Palestinian people.” Miresmaeili is in Beijing to compete but has so far stayed out of the political spotlight — if only because he will not have to face off with Israel.
This time around, Iran had stated it would compete along with Israel. “Alirezaei swims in lane one and the representative of the Zionist regime [Israel] in lane seven, so they will not face each other, said Iranian National Olympic Committee president Ali Kafashian before the race.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Be’eri chose to focus on his own accomplishment, setting a national record of 1.02:42m time, finishing in fourth place. “I just came here ready,” he said, “and I wasn’t nervous at all.”
Israeli-Persian relations warmed on the basketball court later on when Iranian captain Mohammed Nikkhah dismissed politics and embraced Russia’s coach David Blatt, who holds American and Israeli citizenship. “We are coming here for playing sport, nothing else,” Nikkhah said.
August 9, 2008, 10:11am
First Olympic Shabbat: Silver Jew, Bronze Bust and an Act of Violence
By Dan L.
Across Beijing today, TVs were tuned to the first day of Olympic competition. While most people here were cheering for China, I was cheering for fellow American and fellow Jew Sada Jacobson, who won the silver medal in the women’s fencing individual saber event, after besting Russian, Ukrainian and Cuban competitors. Jacobson is a member of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.Israel didn’t have such a hot day today. Gal Yekutiel lost the 60kg judo bronze medal match to the Ruben Houkes of the Netherlands, after beating former world champion Greg Fallon of the U.K. Yekutiel places fifth.
But it wasn’t all bad news for Israel in China today.
The official state news agency, Xinhua, ran a nice (if brief) piece about Israeli reactions to last night’s Opening Ceremony. In Tel Aviv, a thousand fans flocked to watch the live broadcast, which was sponsored by the Chinese embassy.
On a darker note, an American tourist was stabbed to death today by a knife-wielding Chinese man at the Drum Tower, a massive red building just a few blocks north of where I live. A few hours after the incident, the tower, one of the last architectural remnants of old Beijing, was abuzz with media and curious locals. There were almost no police. What impact this will have on the Games, and especially the American team, no one knows. But speaking with Chinese and foreigners, it seems this act of violence is not deterring people from heading out to bars, parks and dumpling joints to watch the sporting events.
August 8, 2008, 5:06pm
As the Games Begin, Telling Applause and Infectious Excitement
By Dan L.
Ditan Park in central Beijing was once where the Emperor would make sacrificial offerings to please the gods at the Temple of the Earth. Tonight, the red walls and clipped lawns again became a place of ritual celebration — this time, to gaze up at two massive screens broadcasting the Olympic opening ceremony. At 8 p.m. (on the eighth day of the eighth month, because the number eight is believed to bring luck), thousands of Chinese fans and hundreds of foreigners hushed as the Bird’s Nest twinkled on screen.
It was pretty surreal to stand for the Chinese national anthem amid a roaring host of young Chinese patriots standing at attention and singing their hearts out as President Hu Jintao appeared on screen. Even the young Public Security police joined in. The ceremony was pretty mind-blowing. It was like a Disney movie starring the Communist Party that highlights China’s cultural and historical wealth, filled with acrobats, legions of synchronized drummers pounding on flashing instruments and so many men and women in lit-up body suits that I almost didn’t notice that the Cultural Revolution and, indeed, Mao himself were no-shows.
But it was the hours-long procession of world athletes that I found most fascinating. International sports, and especially the Olympics, have always crackled with political tension. In fact, there was much fretting in recent days over whether Chinese would boo the Japanese delegation, as many are still bitter over Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of China in the 1930s and ’40s. But Japan’s athletes — waving Chinese and Japanese flags — escaped that humiliation tonight.
August 8, 2008, 10:03am
Beijingers Holding Their Breath, and Not Just Out of Anticipation
By Dan L.
The sky here today is a blinding white. No puffy clouds, no patch of blue. No bright sun. Beijingers will tell you this is normal humid summer haze. China Daily ran an article today under the headline “Air is fine, let the Games begin.” The piece quotes from yesterday’s press conference with the International Olympic Committee’s president, Jacques Rogge, where he reportedly said:
What they [China] have done is extraordinary: planting millions of trees between the Gobi Desert and Beijing, removing hundreds of thousands of polluting cars, closing polluting petrol stations I think they have done a commendable job. The statistics are very clear. The pollution levels are coming down. It is not yet perfect. [But] it is safe for the athletes.
Rogge explains that the soupy gray haze is in fact not a thick layer of pollutants choking the lungs of noodle vendors, police and tourists. “Humidity and heat,” he said, “is not the same as pollution.”
August 7, 2008, 12:01pm
Barring Joey Cheek, Hailing China’s ‘Untainted’ Africa Policies
By Dan L.
Beijing is all about Yao Ming today. He is on the front page of every Chinese newspaper, shown raising the “sacred” Olympic torch high as he trotted through the Forbidden City’s Duan Gate Wednesday, under the stoic gaze of that other national hero, Mao Zedong. There he is again on television, in all his 7-foot-6-inch glory, his Olympic uniform matching the crimson of China’s flag as he runs the final leg of the flame’s worldwide journey past masses of cheering spectators.
Perusing China’s state-controlled media, one has no idea that another Olympian was making headlines in the West, and indeed overshadowing Yao’s patriotic victory jog. Joey Cheek, the gold medal-winning speed skater and president of Team Darfur, a coalition of athletes working to bring attention to China’s links to the bloodshed in Sudan, had his visa revoked by the Chinese government hours before he was set to leave for Beijing.
China’s Foreign Ministry defended the move in a press conference yesterday, saying “the visa issue is a country’s sovereign affairs,” and was intended to “provide a proper, secure environment for people watching and attending the Games.” Meanwhile, Chinese media outlets have been quick to defend their country’s involvement in Africa. On Tuesday, the English-language newspaper, China Daily, ran an opinion piece titled, “Untainted picture of China’s Africa policy, highlighting China’s benevolent role in Africa.”
The article explains:
August 5, 2008, 10:59pm
Beijingers Wait for Olympics Largesse To Trickle Down
By Dan L.
Riding my bike home from dinner on Saturday night, I saw flashing lights fill the night sky over the rooftops in the distance. For once the night was a clear one, devoid of the usual smog. Turning a corner I could see the sparkle of fireworks: the opening ceremony rehearsal. I asked my neighbor, a peasant from the neighboring province of Shandong who sells bottles of Coca Cola for 45 cents out of the one room she lives in with her husband and three children, what she thought of the performance. “It didn’t look very good,” she said. Of course, the view was pretty limited from her shack.
For all the commotion over the coming Olympics, the vast majority of Beijingers are completely disconnected from the billions of dollars and flowery rhetoric that have flooded this city in recent years. For many of them, the government’s rules and regulations are merely a headache.
August 5, 2008, 10:58pm
An Olympic Welcome, From Your Friendly Neighborhood Big Brother
By Dan L.
The colorful billboards that hang along the highways, boulevards and parks here declare the Beijing 2008 Olympic slogan, “One World One Dream,” in a number of languages, including Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian. Hebrew did not make the cut. Given that the entire population of world Jewry could fit into this city of 17 million, with a few million left over, it’s easy to see why. (China has 160 cities with a million residents or more.)
Before arriving in Beijing for the first time in the spring, my knowledge of Chinese society and culture was limited to the gastronomic variety (“mu shu” — as in pancakes — for the record, is not real Mandarin), blurry footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and various scandals involving tainted pet food, medicine and children’s toys-turned-hallucinogens.
But as a journalist, China is a prime destination, especially as the country and, indeed, the world gear up for the Olympics. It seems that nowhere, perhaps besides Israel, receives as much attention on the international stage. I was here for the flare-up of patriotic fury following the global torch-relay protests. I felt the earthquake that struck Sichuan in May all the way in Beijing — the distance from New York to Wisconsin — and in the weeks that followed, I spoke with bereft parents who had lost their only child and were living in refugee tents. Even in their grief and anger over the suspected faulty school construction that took their children’s lives, they voiced a hope for a “great Olympics.”
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