Scientists?  Sure.  Noble laureates?  Easy.  Writers, business men, film makers, and revolutionaries, those lists are long. But athletes? It’s tough, I know; Judaism and sports are not exactly in concert. Trying to find my identifications as a Jew I’ve been exploring this peculiarity of mine over the last three years by learning about the Torah and about Jewish traditions, culture, and history.  I’ve even traveled to Israel twice, yet I learned just recently that over 7000 Jewish athletes gather every four years in Israel. The existence of the Maccabi Games, the “Jewish Olympics,” came as a complete surprise to me. I’m competitive, I like sports, so why have the rabbis kept this from me? I even have a sport I can play.

When I was 10 years old, it was decided for me that tennis was the sport I needed to pick up. Asking my mother and father why they decided to send me to tennis I only get vague non-answers:

“Hard to remember why we sent you there,” my father explains. “Maybe it was convenient, maybe we thought you were short and didn’t have a basketball future, maybe we thought we didn’t want your long nose broken in boxing and the few brain cells you have damaged.” He paused, “Hard to remember now.”

Typical protective Jewish parents.

I think back to the first day, when my father took me up the street, and up the hill to the bus station. We hopped on the bus which wound its way through town, to parts not clearly recognizable to me. Within 20 minutes we were there, walking off the bus and into a building made of heavy stone or cement. As we walked in, I remember thinking the building was a fortress and found it fascinating that a tennis court was set up inside. There was a wooden floor, and the ceilings were extremely high, with the windows above our heads covered in a rusty metal mesh. After a quick introduction my father left me with the instructions that I was to come home right after my tennis lesson.

I was left, deserted, with the instructor, and given a tennis racket. I had played table tennis many times and was part of a table tennis training group.  Badminton was a family tradition played on all of our vacations as well as in front of our nine story residential building.  But tennis was something completely new. The trainer was a middle-aged man with a mustache and socks rolled up over his calves. This being my first lesson, he pointed out the proper way to hold the racket and explained the point of the game: “the ball flies over the net to the other side of the court and the other person hits it back to you.”

The learning ended there.  Practice consisted of people hitting balls back and forth, chasing the balls down and then doing it over and over. At one point, a ball came zooming at me with incredible speed.  I hit it with the racket facing up, and watched the ball fly high up in the air, and into the window, its progression stopped only by the rusty protective metal. The impact made a loud CLING that reverberated through the high empty space.  The game stopped. Everyone was looking at me.

The trainer decidedly took this interruption as an opportunity to teach and proceeded to yell at me for a few minutes about how “the ball should land on the other side of the court, that the game was played with the other opponent not with the window and why the hell was I aiming for the window in the first place if my goal was not to break it?” The lesson was over but my anguish was not soon forgotten, and I vowed not to be part of this dumb sport, with balls that have a mind of their own, flying wherever they want, and I’m the one who gets yelled at in the end.

In true family disposition I came home and said nothing to my parents. Next week, as it would be for many following weeks, it was time for another lesson. Either my mother or my father would take the bus down with me to the fortress of tennis. I would waive goodbye to my parents and walk into the building, only to immediately turn around and walk right out. I would spend the next hour walking the streets, kicking rocks, and sitting around.  I would not hold the tennis racket in my hands ever again.

By end of the summer of that year, the Jewish Federation finalized our papers and the “Union,” which by now was quickly falling apart, allowed our family to make our exit to America. Our emigration put a stop to this farce and saved me from explaining why my tennis skills are what they are today. Had I know about the Maccabi Games I might have chosen to pursue tennis, to become like a Maccabee, a winner, successful in my pursuit of victory and showing courage in the face of adversity. Maybe not.

Anyway, the way I see it, if you want to get ahead in this world, you have to play golf.

Photo provided by StuSeeger, licensed under Creative Commons