A summer of sport and Jewish Joy

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Our vision at Maccabi GB is for “a healthy, active and proud Jewish community, integrated within British society”. It is a sentence we use a lot, but this summer I think we saw what those words actually mean.

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We saw it in Israel, where a small but incredibly proud Team Maccabi GB walked into the Maccabiah Opening Ceremony behind the Union Flag. Around 400 British athletes had originally prepared for these Games, but after the postponement in 2025 and the continuing challenges around travel to Israel, ultimately just 14 were able to compete.

Under the leadership of general team manager Andrew Myers, those who made it certainly made their presence felt, with medals in tennis and fantastic performances in Maccabi Man, chess and pickleball. But what stood out most was how our small but mighty delegation embodied the Maccabiah message of “more than ever”, representing Great Britain proudly in competition, through the connections they built with Israelis and diaspora Jews, and simply by being there. They were incredible ambassadors for our British Jewish community.

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Meanwhile, a number of the athletes who had spent months preparing for the Maccabiah were given other opportunities to compete. In July, 34 young Jewish female footballers travelled to Benidorm in Spain for the Costa Blanca Cup, joining thousands of young footballers from around the world. Our U17s, despite many playing above their age group, reached the semi-final, while our U19s returned home with the trophy after a 2–0 victory against Spanish opposition in the final.

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But, like so much of Maccabi sport, Benidorm became about far more than football. Girls from different schools, clubs and friendship groups became one Maccabi GB family, with football chair Adam Myeroff and the management team leading a Friday night Shabbat dinner and helping create friendships that stretched far beyond the pitch. What began as an alternative to the Maccabiah became an experience in which 34 young Jewish women represented their community openly, confidently and with enormous pride.

Elsewhere, Maccabi Gibraltar organised the inaugural Netfest, bringing together Great Britain, Gibraltar and Israel for a brilliant few days of competition. Our Open Netball squad, led by netball chair Natalie Kenton, won gold and, just as importantly, developed relationships that we hope will lead to a regular international Jewish netball competition.

And then, in August, came Toronto.

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Forty-six young people and a management team of 12 travelled to Canada to represent Team Maccabi GB at the JCC Maccabi Games. Under the stewardship of Heads of Delegation Sammi and Laurence Myers, they came home with an extraordinary 52 medals across football, athletics, swimming and dance, including 15 golds, 23 silvers and 14 bronzes.

There were some fantastic performances, but one of my favourite stories of the summer came from the U15 boys football competition. We had entered two teams, and both topped their groups, battled through the knockout stages and then reached the final. Thousands of miles from home, Team Maccabi GB Green lined up against Team Maccabi GB Blue to decide who would become JCC Maccabi champions. Green eventually won 2–1, but I suspect the sight of two British Jewish teams competing against each other for gold will remain with everyone who was there for a very long time.

The medals, though, tell only part of the story.

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Our young people stayed with incredibly generous host families, experienced Shabbat within Toronto’s Jewish community, volunteered through JCC Cares, visited Niagara Falls, swapped kit and made friendships with young Jews from around the world. Our footballer Izzy Clements received the Brian Green z”l Award, recognising an athlete who embodies respect, integrity, community, kindness and fair play.

These are the moments that explain why we do this.

Of course we want to win gold medals. But international Jewish sport has never just been about medals. Put a Great Britain shirt on a 14-year-old, send them halfway around the world and surround them with thousands of other Jewish teenagers, and something very special happens. They discover a Jewish world much larger than their school, synagogue or friendship group, while discovering how proud they are to represent Britain within it.

Even competing in a non-Jewish tournament such as Benidorm, our girls came home with greater confidence in who they are, new Jewish friendships and a stronger sense of belonging. At a time when being visibly Jewish doesn’t always feel easy for young people, seeing them walk into an international tournament in Maccabi GB colours, proud of both their team and their community, was incredibly powerful. And while all of this was happening around the world, sport at home never stopped.

Thousands of children continued to participate through our school tournaments, with more than 30 competitions planned for the coming academic year. Our Parents Football League has grown to include 18 schools; tennis and walking football bring together dozens every week; basketball and table tennis are expanding and Mini Maccs is introducing our very youngest children to Jewish sport.

When I look at all of this together, what stands out is the breadth of what we are trying to build.

We want to reach from our youngest participants to our oldest, from beginners discovering the enjoyment of being active to athletes representing Great Britain at the highest level of Jewish sport, from London and the South to communities across the North, and from a local school playground all the way to Israel, Canada and the international Maccabi movement. Whatever someone’s age, ability, level or location, there should be somewhere for them to belong within Maccabi GB.

That has to include people for whom traditional sporting opportunities have not always been accessible.

This year we are working with partners in the community on an ambitious new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Sport, Health and Wellbeing partnership, beginning by listening to families about what they actually need. They want appropriately adapted opportunities, delivered by people who understand SEND, but they also told us that the most important outcome they wanted was friendship.

Our ambition is to establish a dedicated SEND sports programme and regular opportunities across schools and community settings, creating sport that adapts around the individual rather than expecting the individual to adapt around the sport.

Because if our vision genuinely is a healthy, active and proud Jewish community, then it has to mean the whole community. Perhaps that word proud is the one I have thought about most this summer.

We understandably spend a great deal of time talking about the challenges of being Jewish.

This Rosh Hashanah will be particularly poignant as we approach the anniversary of the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, and we will remember those whose lives were so cruelly ended and a community who will mourn that loss for ever.

But our Jewish identity cannot be defined only by the things we have to confront.

There has to be space for Jewish joy too, and this summer I saw it everywhere.

I saw it in a 101-year-old man walking around a track in north London and a two-year-old child kicking a football for the first time, in two British teams lining up against each other in a final in Toronto, in athletes walking behind the Union Flag in Israel, in 34 Jewish girls walking into a stadium in Spain in Maccabi GB colours and then sitting down together for Shabbat and in netballers winning gold in Gibraltar.

I saw it in parents playing sport together, teenagers making Jewish friends from the other side of the world, and thousands of people spending a Sunday together simply because being part of this community feels good.

That, ultimately, is the community we are trying to build; one where being Jewish is something we don’t only protect, explain or defend, but something we live and enjoy.

Healthy. Active. Proud.

And after this extraordinary summer, I think we have seen exactly what those three words can mean.