An outstanding football and track star in his high school in Portervile, near Fresno, Efseaff was courted by most Pac-10 football teams. He picked UCLA, he said, because the presence of a small Molokan and large Jewish community in Los Angeles would assure a ready supply of kosher food.
Ethan Lee Fougner, a 7-year-old hockey player from Valencia, is our May Athlete of the Month.
I had no idea of the impact that our gold-medal victory in the 1984 Games would have on not only my life, but on the lives of others as well.
That Jews have been prominent in the history of ancient and modern sport, and specifically the Olympic Games, should not come as a surprise. We tend to forget that one of the sparks that ignited the Maccabbees\’ revolt was – as the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius recorded some 2,000 years ago – that some high priests in Jerusalem\’s Holy Temple neglected their holy duties and instead, exercised in the nude, Greek style. Josephus also recorded that Herod the Great [Herod The Wicked, to some], King of Judea, saved the ancient Olympic Games from bankruptcy by endowing them with gifts and revenues upon which \”he was generally declared in their inscriptions to be one of the perpetual managers of those games.\”
Besides Lenny Krayzelburg, three other American Jews with a Southern California connection are vying for the gold at the Olympic Games in Sydney: a runner who graduated from Agoura Hills High School, a 19-year-old from Valencia who will be the first person of African-American descent to swim in the Olympics, and an Irvine-based swimmer who loves to surf.
Athletes from the former Soviet Union have transformed the Israeli Olympics sports scene. About one-third of the Israeli team in the upcoming Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia – and five of the six strongest Israeli contenders – are originally from the former Soviet Union.
Millions of immigrants have flocked to the United States looking for streets paved with gold. Lenny Krayzelburg, who came to Los Angeles from Odessa, Ukraine, in 1988 is searching for gold as well – but in a pool at Sydney\’s Olympic Games.
That\’s how it\’s been: one win after another.
The inspiration and driving force behind \”Co-Existense\” is the energetic and visionary, Freddie Kravine, 80, who serves as president of the Israel Tennis Federation and is one of the original 1976 founders of the Tennis Center.
The Pan Am Maccabi Games are a 12-day Olympic-style athletic and cultural festival for Jewish athletes from around the world.
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