Category Archives: World of Sport

Jews in the World of Sport

Jews of the Week: Marcel and Sylvan Adams

Canadian-Israeli Mega Donors

Marcel Adams and Sylvan Adams

Meir Marcel Abramovici (1920-2020) was born to a traditional Jewish family in Romania and became a leather tanner like his father. After three years in Nazi labour camps, he escaped to Turkey, and then to Israel, where he fought in the War of Independence. A few years later, he moved to Canada and got a job working at a Quebec tannery, where his boss told him to change his last name to “Adams”. Once he saved a little bit of money he began investing in real estate. In 1958, Adams became a full-time real estate investor and founded Iberville Developments. Today, the company has over 100 shopping centres, residential buildings, and industrial properties across Canada and the US. Before he passed away, Adams was the world’s second-oldest billionaire, and a noted philanthropist. He established Tel Aviv University’s Adams Institute for Business Management Information Systems and the Adams Super Center for Brain Research.

His son Sylvan Adams (b. 1958) took over Iberville Developments in 1990, and served as its CEO for the next 25 years, until making aliyah and settling in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, he took up professional cycling and in 2017 won the World Masters Championship in England. The following year, he opened the first indoor velodrome in Israel (and the entire Middle East). He gave 80 million shekels to bring the 2018 Giro d’Italia, one of cycling’s prestigious Grand Tours, to Israel, marking the first time that the tournament was held outside Europe. Adams has signed the Giving Pledge and is a huge philanthropist. He donated 100 million shekels to Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center in 2019, and financed a new children’s hospital at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. Earlier this week, he announced $100 million to Ben-Gurion University in the Negev to “rebuild and strengthen” the south of Israel following the October 7 massacre. His foundation provides doctoral scholarships at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and funds the Nefesh b’Nefesh “Bonei Zion Prize” for immigrants to Israel who make a profound impact on the country. He also donated $5 million to SpaceIL to develop Israel’s nascent space program and put an Israeli spacecraft on the moon. Adams is still cycling, and earlier this year won the UCI Cycling World Championships in his age category.

Chanukah Begins Tonight – Chag Sameach!

Chanukah & the Light of Creation

Words of the Week

We must support the gentile poor along with the Jewish poor, and visit the gentile sick along with the Jewish sick, and bury the gentile poor along with the Jewish poor, for the sake of peace.
– Talmud, Gittin 61a

Jew of the Week: Dick Savitt

First Jewish Tennis World Champion and No. 1

Richard Savitt (1927-2023) was born in New Jersey. He grew up playing basketball, but bad knees forced him to drop the sport. Meanwhile, Savitt had started playing tennis at the age of 14 just for fun. He ended up making it all the way to the state championship—having never taken a single tennis lesson in his life! By the time he was in university, he was ranked 8th best among American juniors. After serving in the US Navy during World War II, he captained Cornell’s tennis team and won several titles. He went on to win both the 1951 Wimbledon championship and the 1951 Australian Open, becoming the first Jewish tennis player to win either title. It put him on the cover of TIME Magazine, and he was the first Jewish athlete with that distinction, too. Unfortunately, Savitt faced antisemitism at a time when tennis was considered an elite “country club sport” and many country clubs still banned Jews from membership. Savitt was snubbed from the 1951 US Davis Cup team, and from being ranked the world’s number one player. Many believe this was due to antisemitism, but Savitt himself liked to think that wasn’t the reason. (The New York Times declared him the world’s No. 1 anyway, despite his official ranking remaining at No. 2.) Savitt has been credited with making tennis a more popular sport among Jews, and in Israel where he helped run the country’s Israel Tennis Centers. He also played a big role in supporting and expanding Israel’s Maccabiah Games, and himself won multiple Maccabiah gold medals. Savitt was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1976, and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1979. After retiring from tennis, he worked in the oil and finance industries. Sadly, Savitt passed away earlier this year.

Top 10 Greatest Jewish Athletes

Words of the Week

…There is not any city of the Greeks, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our practice of resting on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts and lighting up lamps, and many of our prohibitions as to our food, are not observed; they also endeavour to imitate our mutual concord with one another, and the charitable distribution of our goods… and, what is here matter of the greatest admiration, our law hath no bait of pleasure to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force; and as God Himself pervades all the world, so hath our law passed through all the world also.
– Josephus (c. 37-100 CE), Against Apion 2:40

Jew of the Week: Yossef Romano

War Hero, Weightlifting Champion, Holy Martyr

Yossef Romano

Yossef Romano (1940-1972) was born in Benghazi, Libya to a family of traditional Italian Sephardic Jews. The family made aliyah when he was six years old and settled in Herzliya. Romano became an interior designer, but his real passion was weightlifting. He started to compete professionally, and soon set Israeli records in the lightweight and middleweight categories. He was Israel’s weightlifting champion for nine years straight, and also coached the Hapoel Tel Aviv team. His greatest dream came true in 1972 when he represented Israel at the Munich Olympics. He promised his family that it would be his last competition and he would retire from the sport for good when he came back home. Unfortunately, on the first day of competition, he injured a knee tendon and needed surgery. Romano decided to stay and support the rest of the Israeli Olympic team. The night before his flight, Palestinian terrorists stormed the Israeli compound and took the Israeli athletes hostage. Romano was a war hero who fought valiantly in the Six-Day War, and immediately attacked the terrorists. He managed to beat one down and disarm him, but was shot by another, before being brutally tortured and killed. His bravery gave five of the athletes time to escape, including (former Jew of the Week) Shaul Ladany. The remaining 11 were all murdered by the terrorists during the botched rescue attempt. Romano’s wife, Ilana Romano, campaigned for years to have the International Olympic Committee formally honour the victims, and her request for a moment of silence at the 2012 Olympics was denied. She did manage to get the IOC to contribute $250,000 towards a memorial. This week marks the 51st anniversary of the Munich Massacre.

Words of the Week

The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven an everlasting fire and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring and fountain out of which all of the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions. The Jew is the pioneer of liberty…
– Leo Tolstoy