North Jersey Jew Report: Israel & The Winter Olympics

The Jews are by and large an not Olympic bunch, although we did have plenty of representatives in Beijing. We prefer events that we can win without risk of injury or prizes that we can buy. Our interests lie with things that involve other Jews or Israel.

Jews are competitive but within their own kind. Most are not blessed with extraordinary size, speed, or strength unless you consider Rabbinical bellies and their fullness or if their were a beard growing contest, we could probably put up a good fight. But we also don't forget the locales where our resolve once was once tested, and stand up in face of that for as long as we can breathe. Our resolve to exist and be proud of it is unlike any other especially since Munich is bidding in 2018 to be the first host city ever to host both Olympics.

Israel is not really a cold weather country. The one time I visited there was about an inch and a half of light powder on the ground and the city came to a halt. You'll probably never see a more scared Israeli soldier than our driver when we asked why we wouldn't be driving up to Safed that day. He just gave us a blank stare and yelled in Hebrew, "Can't you see what's happening out there?" Our group of mostly metropolitan North-easterners just looked outside confused until it was explained to us that the country doesn't even have snow tires. On the rare occurrence that it does snow, the country pretty much shuts down. So in the Northeastern US it takes about a foot to shut down daily activities, in Israel it just takes a few flakes.

But since the Vancouver Winter Olympics are plastered on and crammed into an array of NBC-related airwaves, will Israel have any representatives at the Olympics? Yes they will in fact and not just the one random Alpine skiier that most countries throw out their so their flag can appear in the opening ceremonies. There are three. One is that obligatory Alpine skiier Mikail Renzhin, who will compete in the Slalom & giant slalom events. Any chance of petitioning these events for a name change? How about the shalom and the giant shalom events? Peace... the Olympics... get it.

Israel's other two representative's will be a brother and sister Ice Skating duo, Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky. According to the JTA, "The Zaretskys finished seventh in the 2010 European Championships, which earned them an Olympics berth. They are scheduled to skate to "Hava Nagila" and the music of "Schindler's List." It is their second Olympics."


The dynamic Israeli duo appear to be in pain.

Couldn't we get a little more creative than "Hava Nagila", even though it is the anthem of bar mitzvahs worldwide? And seriously, the music for "Schindler's List?" This isn't the Oscars, where you make a just put a Holocaust reference in and get nominated. For one night, can we avoid reminding the world, why Israel was created?

According to a post in J. Weekly by Ben Harris,

"Israeli is sending three athletes to compete in Vancouver ... It is Israel’s smallest delegation to the Winter Games since 1998, when the nation also sent three athletes. Israel sent five athletes to each of the last two Winter Games — in Turin, Italy, in 2006 and Salt Lake City in 2002. Israel’s first-ever appearance in the Winter Games was in 1994 in Lillehammer, France, when one Israeli athlete participated.

About 15 years ago, the Israeli Olympic Committee began applying demanding new standards to limit its Olympics delegation to athletes with a legitimate shot at a medal. Consequently, the summer delegations have gotten smaller and the winter delegations have remained tiny.

One casualty this year was Israeli figure skater Tamar Katz. Although she had already qualified for the Olympics based on international competitions, the tougher standards of the Israel’s Olympic Committee required at top-14 finish in last month’s European championships in Estonia. Hampered by illness, she made a mistake in her routine and finished 21st."

At least this makes sense, send only people with a chance. Many countries really do just send someone for the sake of expressing that they exist in the world like the Cayman Islands sending their first Olympian Dow Travers. An Olympian who went to boarding school in the UK, and attends Brown University, an ivy league school in Rhode Island. A true representative of the He placed 65th in the slalom event at the world championships and is also a member of the Cayman National Rubgy Team. According to his Wikipedia entry, "Dow is affectionately known as "the Ginga Ninja," "Ginger," "Nang," and "Ranga", and his housemate Jay Smith is known for his Call for Duty world ranking and his renownd [sic] Food baby."

That's a lot of nicknames... and what is a food baby? Ah yes, here's your answer from the always helpful Urban Dictionary, "when you eat so much, that your stomach looks pregnant." I have a feeling that this Jay Smith may have added this himself and embarrassed his very expensive education by misspelling something in his claim to fame. Does a country with a population or around 50,000 really need a national rugby team?

The New York Times, Israel's home newspaper in the USA, reported on the topic of Israeli Olympians in mid January and I think they explained the Olympic spirit best:

"It almost never snows in Israel, and there is only one regulation ice rink in the entire country, in Metulla, on the Lebanese border, where temperatures regularly reach 100 degrees. During the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the rink had to be closed for security reasons and the roof was damaged from shelling. Even now, the ice is not entirely reliable, and there are not enough hours in the day to accommodate everyone who wants to use it: speedskaters, figure skaters, and hockey nuts who drive three hours from Jerusalem for Thursday night games.

So it is no surprise that Israel is hardly a winter sports power. The country has been sending teams to the Winter Olympics only since 1994 and has yet to win a medal. Its best finish was 2002, when an ice-dancing pair, Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski, finished sixth.

Eventually, an Israeli winter athlete with international aspirations must move elsewhere — to the mountains somewhere or, if he or she is a skater, to someplace like Bergen County, N.J. Chait began skating at Rockefeller Center.

Mikail Renzhin, a downhill skier who has already made the 2010 Israeli team, has been training in the United States for the last couple of years. And unless something unexpected happens at the European Figure Skating Championships, which start Tuesday in Tallinn, Estonia, Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky, a brother-sister ice-dancing pair, should also make the squad. They live in Garfield, N.J., and train at the Ice House, in Hackensack... The virtual capital of Israeli skating is Paramus, N.J., where Boris Chait lives after emigrating from Russia to Israel and then to this country. Chait, a 59-year-old who used to be a boxer and still looks it, is the president and chairman of the Israel Ice Skating Federation."

So the chairman of the Israeli Ice Skating Federation live in Northern Jersey. Now it all makes sense. As for the big question, who's paying for this mishegas...

"As of late December, he [Chait] explained, he had received only a quarter of the money he had been promised by the Israeli Olympic Committee, and for the time being he would have to make up the shortfall himself."

Now that sounds like a first class Jewing if you ask me. Here's hoping we have to schlep some gold home from Vancouver.