Home Community Community News Maccabiah Riders and the making of Back to Berlin

Maccabiah Riders and the making of Back to Berlin

In 1930 a team of motorbike riders set out from Tel Aviv to Berlin to find athletes to participate in the inaugural 1932 Maccabiah games, also known as the Jewish Olympics. Back then, due to rampant anti-Semitism, the Maccabi sports movement was often the only outlet for many Jewish athletes. Some 80 years later, anti-Semitism is once again resurgent in Europe. This month, Berlin, home of the infamous 1936 Nazi Olympics, will welcome hundreds of athletes of Jewish descend participating in the European Maccabiah Games. In Back to Berlin, new documentary by Catherine Lurie-Alt, a new generation of Israeli bikers, descendants of Holocaust survivors, inspired by the 1930 ride, will travel from Tel Aviv to Berlin to carry the torch to the Games. Our bikers, whose journey we will be following on Facebook, will also have to answer one very important question as they seek to uncover their families’ pasts