Another Oregonian headed for Maccabiah in Israel

By DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2009-00-25T00:00:00

Joji Kurosaki, son of Nikki and Yoshio Kurosaki of Portland, is heading for Israel to participate in the 18th Maccabiah, expected to be the largest games ever with about 5,300 international athletes and an additional 2,000 Israeli athletes expected to compete.

The Maccabiah Games, held every four years in Israel, are often called “the Jewish Olympics.” More than 7,000 athletes from nearly 60 countries around the world will participate in 35 sporting events. The Maccabiah is the third largest international sporting event, after the Olympics and the World University Games. Participants in the event must have Jewish heritage and are selected by committees formed in each country to choose the best athletes to represent their country.

Kurosaki, who graduated from the University of Oregon this spring, will play on the U.S. rugby team. Kurosaki attended Portland Jewish Academy in fifth grade and became a bar mitzvah at Congregation Neveh Shalom.

Kurosaki will play flanker for the U.S. team. He played rugby at both Boston University and the U of O, after he transferred in the middle of his sophomore year.

The Portlander was selected for the rugby team at tryouts in Chicago last August. He said he was shocked by the level of competition at the tryouts and was surprised when he was one of the 15 out of the 60 trying out who were selected for the team. He said a few more players were added later.

Since rugby is not an Olympic sport, Kurosaki said he thinks the Maccabiah represents the top rugby competition in the world.

Kurosaki, who said this will be his first trip to Israel, said his mother encouraged him to consider trying out for the Maccabiah. He said his mother and aunt, Marcia Weiss, went to see the games with their father Philip Feldman to watch their sister Emily Einhorn compete in swimming in the Maccabiah when she was young.

In addition to the sports competition, Kurosaki said he is looking forward to the cultural aspect of the trip.

“People say going to Israel puts it all into perspective,” he said. “I’m excited to see and meet people and enjoy the culture. We’ll be there three and half weeks with Maccabiah, which is a pretty long time.”

Other Portlanders whose participation in the games have already been announced in the Jewish Review include Jacob Haas and David Axel, graduates of Sunset High School and Neveh Shalom religious school, who will be competing in track, and Glen Coblens, who plans to compete in the masters half marathon and triathalon.

At a Maccabiah organizing committee press conference June 14, Ittamar Herman, chairman of the Organizing Committee for the 18th Maccabiah, said the impressive number of athletes from overseas who are registered for the Maccabiah—about 5,300 (to which one should add about 2,000 Israel athletes expected to compete), are many more than expected, especially in view of the worldwide economic crisis. Those 7,300 athletes are about 15 percent more than the number of athletes who participated in the last Maccabiah.

Igal Carmi, chairman of Maccabi World Union, said that while the overseas participants see the games as primarily a sporting event, there is an additional Zionist component: “Tens of thousands of people are coming to Israel this summer in order to proclaim, ‘We love the State of Israel and embrace her, we belong to the same nation.’ This is not something to be taken lightly. For many of the athletes, this will be the first Jewish experience in their lives.”