My Jewish summer actually started around the first week of July, at my Bat-Mitzvah. I had months of training prior to that. I studied for about six months with tutors to prepare for that one weekend when I would receive all the responsibilities of a Jewish adult. When it was all over I took a short vacation and it seemed like almost immediately Maccabi started.
Maccabi is a week long Jewish athletic competition where athletes from ages thirteen through sixteen come from all over the United States, Venezuela, Israel, Mexico, and Canada come to compete in a variety of different sports. They hold competitions in basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, dance, soccer, bowling and table tennis. And if you were not the athletic type, you could be a Star reporter. Star reporters are the people who would write articles and take pictures for the Lonestar Report, which came out daily.
Each athlete from out of town who came to compete was placed with a host family. It was the host family's responsibility to pick their athletes up, feeding them and getting them ready for the competition that lay ahead. On Sunday, August 7- 1,200 athletes along with their delegation heads and coaches arrived. That is a lot of people. At the opening ceremony is where I was most amazed by the numbers.
The opening ceremony was held in the Freeman Coliseum. All 1,200 athletes gathered there on the first night. To introduce all of the teams, we got to walk through the Coliseum with our groups. They also lit a torch, kind of like what they do at the real Olympics. For entertainment they had a dance troupe and a band perform. That was the night that made it clear to me what 1,200 Jewish teenagers looked like! It was a lot of people!
Since the Maccabi Games were in San Antonio this year, the people who live here have to find places for all of the out of town athletes to sleep. The houses who would take in kids for that week were called host families. We had four kids stay with us at our home, two girls from Los Angelas and two boys from Ohio. I found it interesting how different regions speak differently but it is still English! They called soda “pop”, and they thought it was hilarious how we said y'all. It was fun to house people because at the end of the day we would sit and talk about how our day went and who we met or what we tried to trade for and everybody could relate.
My favorite thing about Maccabi was meeting all the different people and listening to their accents! It was easy to meet people because you could just walk up to somebody and ask them if they won their game that day or ask to switch pins. Each team member was given a jacket and a shirts and pins from their town and it was a big thing that you trade them with each other. The goal was to get something from a town that you liked or a jacket that you liked, or a neat pin. This was also a wonderful way to meet people.
It was neat to realize that everybody participating in the games was Jewish. It was nice not having to explain what a bar/bat mitzvah was, and it was amazing how many Jewish teenagers there were altogether! We all kind of knew about our religion and each other and could relate to each other. At the same time the sports were competitive, but all the athletes were nice and friendly to everyone. You got to play the sports you love and not have to worry about your competitors being mean. Maccabi was an altogether good experience!
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