Maccabi World Union

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The Maccabi World Union was created at the 12th World Jewish Congress in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia in 1921. It was then decided by the secretariat of Jewish sport leaders to form one umbrella organization for all Jewish Sports associations.

1 Name Meaning
2 Aims and history
3 History in Israel
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Name Meaning

The movement is named after the Maccabees (Hebrew: מכבים or מקבים, Makabim) who were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

The origin of the word is not clear but the common opinion is that the word "Maccabi" (מכבי) is an acronym of the biblical sentence: "Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the mighty?" (Exodus 15:11), in Hebrew: "'מי כמוך באלים י", "Mi kamocha ba'elim YHWH".

[edit] Aims and history

The aim was: "To foster physical education, belief in Jewish heritage and the Jewish nation, and to work actively for the rebuilding of our own country and for the preservation of our people". Jewish sports clubs were founded in Eastern and Central Europe. The first club was the Israelite Gymnastic Association Constantinople (German: Israelitischer Turnverein Konstantinopel) founded in 1895 in Constantinople, Turkey by Jews of German and Austrian extraction who had been rejected from participating in other social sport clubs. Two years later, haGibor was formed in Phillipople, Bulgaria and 1898 saw the founding of Bar Kochba Berlin along with VAC in Budapest, Hungary.

Other clubs that followed were named after “Bar Kochba” or Hebrew names such as “Hakoah” or “Hagibor” that symbolized strength and heroism. One of the basic premises behind the founding of these clubs was Jewish Nationalism. The concept was that Jews were not only a religious entity, but also one based on a common historical and social background, having special cultural and psychological concepts that have been preserved to this day, resulting in a strong recognition of collective belonging.

[edit] History in Israel

In 1906, the first Jewish Gymnastics club was formed in Palestine. Clubs later would spring up in other cities. By 1912, all of them joined the Maccabi Federation of Israel. That same year, the first relations were established between them and their European counterparts, when a decision was taken at the Maccabi Conference in Berlin, to begin group trips to Palestine.