By Bill Simons

Pierre de Coubertin, the aristocratic French educator and writer who founded the modern Olympics, envisioned the revived games through a prism of idealism. The quadrennial ancient Olympics (776 B.C.E.-393 C.E.) originated in Greece as a religious festival featuring athletic and artistic completion, and continued after the rise of the Roman Empire. By protocol and tradition, warring parties vouchsafed the safety of athletes traveling to the games. Olympia in Greece remained the permanent site of the ancient Olympics. The decline of public funding, reflecting changing political and cultural priorities, brought an end to the ancient Olympics after more than a millennium. 

For 1,500 years, the Olympics remained dormant until Coubertin – through tireless promotion, networking and organizing – created the modern games that debuted in 1896 Athens. He sought to promote peaceful internationalism between peoples through amateur athletic competition. Over time, national ambitions, ever increasing demands imposed on athletes and commercialism eroded Coubertin’s ideal, even as the games grew in size, spectacle and expenditure. World wars cancelled three Olympics, and political agendas led to national boycotts and the banning of countries. With host Adolf Hitler’s employment of politicized architecture, pageantry and propaganda, the 1936 Berlin Olympics promoted the Third Reich’s Nazi dogma. During the Cold War, athletic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union turned ideological and impacted international rivalries. 

In 2024, the Olympics returned to Paris, Coubertin’s home, after a 100-year hiatus. Jews had reason for apprehension. In France, even before the Gaza war, violent attacks on Jews had escalated. Indeed, notorious episodes of antisemitism mark French history. French Jews endured waves of restrictions, expulsions and Crusader-inflicted mass murder during the Middle Ages. During the 1890s, antisemitic canards fueled the conviction and draconian punishment of army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason, an episode that polarized French society. The World War II French Vichy government collaborated in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps. The Israel war of self-defense that began with Hamas’ terrorism attack on southern Israel on October 7 has intensified antisemitism in France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish population. The most notorious of the numerous recent acts of antisemitism in France include the May firebombing of a Rouen synagogue and the June gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Paris. On social media, French Olympic sprinter Muhammad Abdallah Kounta posted, “May Allah grant the most terrible and horrible degree of hell to the Zionists and their supporters… may they suffer for eternity.”

Amidst virulent anti-Israel demonstrations, death threats and derisive chants aimed at Jewish athletes, French President Emmanuel Macron and Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin resolved that nothing akin to the 1972 Munich kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli Olympians by Black September terrorists would occur in Paris. Mounting a massive presence, elite police and special security units effectively deterred potential terrorism at the Paris Olympics. And displaying courage, grace under pressure and athletic excellence, Jewish athletes from Israel and the Diaspora performed magnificently. 

Jews have participated and won laurels in the modern Olympics since its 1896 inception. Taken as an aggregate, however, and considering context, Jewish triumphs at the 2024 Paris Olympics arguably surpass those of any of the previous games. Jewish athletes from America, Australia and Israel won 18 medals – six gold, seven silver and five bronze in Paris. Israeli athletes garnered seven of those medals, a record for the Jewish state. Considering the pervasive pressure felt by Jewish competitors due to escalating antisemitic attacks accompanying the ongoing Hamas war, the tally is truly remarkable. 

The odyssey of 20-year-old U.S. Olympic wrestler Amit Elor underscores the challenges that Jewish athletes encountered on their journey to the 2024 Paris games. She carries the legacy of grandparents forced to flee from the Holocaust, a coming of age marred by tragic and unexpected deaths of loved ones, direct encounters with antisemitism, and jibes about girls and women who wrestle. The daughter of Israelis who migrated to California, Elor grew up with parents and five older siblings who were gifted athletes. Oshry, her generous, 6’5” 325-pound, football star brother, was murdered, and her father Yair died under mysterious circumstances. Talented and determined, Elot, undefeated in competition since 2019, earned a 2024 Olympic gold medal in the women’s freestyle 68 kg (149.1 pounds) division, the youngest American wrestler to ever claim first place. During the Olympics, she suffered social media attacks, amongst them: “And you belong in the gas chamber.” She dedicated her victory to America, Israel, Oshry, her father, and her refugee grandparents. Donning a yellow pin in support of hostages taken by Hamas terrorists, Elot declared, “Eighty years ago my grandparents survived the Holocaust, but antisemitism is still all around us. My grandparents won. I won. Humanity will win. Never again.” 

Slalom canoeist Jessica Fox is arguably the greatest Jewish Olympian whose name is not Mark Spitz, the swimmer who won seven gold medals at the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics. The 2024 Paris games were the fourth Olympics for 5’5”, 132-pound Fox. With her Gentile father, Richard, and Jewish mother, Myriam, both former Olympic canoeists, Fox moved from France to Australia when she was 4 years old. Myriam serves as coach for Jessica and younger daughter Noemie. Identifying as Jewish, Fox, a proud recipient of Maccabi World Union recognition, called a 2019 trip to Israel – accompanied by her maternal grandmother, mother and sister – impactful.

At the Paris Olympics, Fox was an Australian flag bearer at the opening ceremonies. Then, she went to claim first in the 2024 C1 and K1 kayak slalom competition. With six medals over four games (2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024), she is, at age 30, the winningest slalom canoeist of either gender in Olympic history. Adding to Fox family laurels, her sister Noemie temporarily took the spotlight from big sister Jessica, winning the gold for the inaugural kayak cross in Paris.

Amidst celebration of Jewish Olympic standard bearers, it is important to recognize the danger of encouraging our young to so overspecialize in pursuit of a narrow range of athletic excellence that essential competencies and satisfactions in other areas atrophy. Nonetheless, kudos to the Jewish Olympians who model pride and courage during a time when resurgent antisemitism poses existential threats.