By Jerry Klinger in Boynton Beach, Florida
Steve Kramer, an American Israeli freelance writer from Kfar Saba, Israel, is a frequent contributor to the San Diego Jewish World. His perspectives about life, politics, culture, and society in Israel, as an American who made Aliyah, enable many to sit at his dining room table and experience a “real Israel.”
July 10, he wrote a piece, “Traveling domestically in Israel” about his staycation in Israel.
Why travel to foreign countries that do not want you to see their riches or even want you there when the greatest riches are found in your own home?
One of the adventures of Steve’s staycation happens only once every four years. The Maccabiah. Four thousand athletes from scores of countries participated in sporting/cultural events ranging from water polo to competitive ballroom dancing
We have never had the opportunity to experience the Maccabiah. The Maccabiah Games, some call it the “Jewish Olympics,” originated in the late 1920s when Yosef Yekutieli, a visionary figure in Israeli sports, proposed hosting a Jewish Olympic-style competition. Inspired by the philosophy of “Muscular Judaism” advanced by Theodor Herzl’s friend and early Zionist, Max Nordau, countered the historical antisemitic stereotype of the physically frail diaspora Jew. The very first Maccabiah was held in Tel Aviv in the spring of 1932.
The 2026 Maccabiah, July 1- July 14, brought eight thousand athletes from scores of countries to Israel. They competed in sporting/cultural events ranging from water polo to competitive ballroom dancing.
Many of the events of the 2026 Maccabiah were symbolically linked back to the trauma of October 7 and the Palestinian Genocide of Jews. For the past two years, the horrors of war have claimed many. Some victims were beyond innocent.
During the opening ceremonies, Steve wrote, “Also entering onto the field were the families of the 12 Druze children who were murdered in 2024 by a Hezbollah rocket while playing soccer. The families were given the honor to carry the Maccabiah banner into the stadium during the ceremony.”
On July 27, 2024, Hezbollah Islamic terrorists, firing from Lebanon, sent a missile into Majdal Shams. The Iranian-made Falaq-1 missile loaded with 53 kg. of explosives was deliberately targeted at a soccer field where children from the surrounding villages were playing. The Hezbollah missile killed 12 children and wounded 42 others. The children were 10-16 years old.
Who could be more innocent than children playing soccer near their homes?
For nearly two years since the children were murdered by Hezbollah, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP), working with noted Israeli sculptor Sam Philipe, in cooperation with the Majdal Shams community and the Golan Regional Council, has been engaged in memorializing the children.
A permanent memorial was designed and built near the site of the tragedy at a roundabout for a new sports complex being built. A giant, interpretive “Soccer Ball” was sited in their honored memory. A simple text was placed at the base of the “Football”,
“If tears could build a highway, and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to Heaven and bring you home again.”
The memorial sat for months. The road work, the new stadium, the gardening, and the work on and adjacent to the “Football” advanced at a crawl. Hezbollah continued trying to send death through the air to kill more innocents. The IDF reasonably delayed moving the construction forward rapidly.
The memorial to the Druze Children, the Children of the blood brotherhood of the Druze and Jewish people, still waits. When will it be completed? When will it be dedicated? Will the memory and blood be obscured by time and the distance of location?
When Steve wrote that the Druze families carried the Maccabiah Games banner into the ceremony, it was a statement.
The Druze will never forget what happened, and the Jews will never forget what happened to the Druze and all Children.
Former Prime Minister Golda Meir famously observed, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Halevai (הַלְוַאי)
The “Football” will be formally dedicated when security permits. It may be weeks, months, don’t know. But it will be done. The Children, the innocent victims of adult hatred, ignorance, and prejudice, will never be forgotten.
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Jerry Klinger is President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.