On Saturday April 10th UC Santa Cruz hosted the first intercollegiate Macabiada games, sponsored by the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco. It was modeled after the international Jewish sporting event, the Maccabia Games. 120 students from the Hillels of UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Berkley, San Francisco State, Chico State, and the Silicon Valley campuses came to sweat, play, and taunt tirelessly in the hopes of becoming the Macabiada champions of 2011. Both plastic trophies and honor were at stake. Four American athletes from the Maccabia Games in Israel, Murray Sheldon, Desmond B. Tuck, Michael Leitner, and Ben Auerbach, came to share their experiences with students before the competition began and to participate as honorary referees.
There were competitions in multiple divisions, basketball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, backgammon, sumo (yes, sumo), tug-of-war, Israeli trivia, and volleyball. It was similar to the Maccabia games in Israel in that there was a wildly exciting clash of Jews, sports, sweat, blood, hopeful fans, and media coverage.
However, the Maccabia games in Israel do not have an inflatable sumo-wrestling pit. Nor do all the participants in that competition, win or lose, eat free sandwiches and get to go afterwards to the Warriors vs. the Sacramento Kings game.. It was Jewish heritage night at the arena and Omri Caspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA, stayed after the game for a Q&A session.
“We had a lot of fun and received great feedback from students, staff, and community members,” said event organizer Erez Shachar from the UCSC Hillel. All of that and the athletes didn’t even have to drink raw eggs or run up a hill to theme music. I’m jealous. Being able to say that I am a gold medalist in ultimate Frisbee would be epic. There’s already talk of another possible intercollegiate Macabiada event next year in the Bay Area. You never know, maybe I’ll have learned how to…well…catch the frisbee, by then.
P.S. Click on the image on the right to see pictures of the event.
