Jewish Ambivalence Toward Olympics

Last December, Israel’s President Shimon Peres greeted the Beijing Olympic by saying:

China built the longest wall in history. Now it is building the largest Olympic Games in history. The wall was meant to conceal China from its enemies, while the Olympic Games are destined to reveal the new China to its friends. Whereas the wall shows the greatness of its land, the Olympics will show the greatness of its spirit.

Instead, the Olympics has served to show off the meanness of China’s spirit.

World leaders and multinational corporate sponsors have rejected boycotting the Olympics, out of various great power and trade motivations. Yet, their motivations are transparent and the increased global inspection of China’s deplorable internal and external policies and actions has served exactly the opposite goal of self-promotion that was China’s goal.

Still, U.S. Jews have decided to take a stand on the side of morality. AP reports:

A wide-ranging group of U.S. Jewish leaders plans to release a statement Wednesday urging Jews worldwide to boycott the Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing China's troubling record on human rights and Tibet….

"We are deeply troubled by China's support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas," the statement reads.

"Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today."

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, past chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, said signers are not alleging that the Chinese government is the equivalent of the Nazi regime, but that China, like Germany in 1936, is trying to use the Olympics as a public relations tool to deflect attention from its record.

However, as JTA reports, they draw a line at a complete boycott:

One of the signatories, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, said the call targeted tourists only and that the organizers did not expect Jewish athletes or Israeli officials to boycott the games.

"This is a moral appeal to Jewish individuals around the world," Yoffie told JTA.

Israel’s Olympics head seems to have taken his page from Avery Brundage at the 1936 Olympics:

The Secretary General of Israel's Olympic Committee, Efraim Singer, slammed international attempts to boycott Beijing Olympic Games Tuesday and joined the demand recently made by other countries urging not to "mix politics with sports."…

In a telephone interview with the Argentinean Jewish organization AJN (Agencia Judía de Noticias) from Beijing, Singer said that the demonstrations staged by human rights organizations and pro-Tibetan activists, "shows that there are people who want to take advantage of the mediatic impact of the Games".

"I think there are other forums for one to express oneself, such as the UN, for instance," Singer stated.

The U.N.! No further comment needed.

Israel has strong trade relations with China, is needful of such economic ties for the strength of its economy to withstand its heavy security costs, and by itself hardly would seem to affect the decisions of the world’s powers.

But, Israel and Jews have earned respect in most reputable quarters for taking moral stances and defending them, at great costs.

Thursday is Yom Hashoah, Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism. The heroism refers to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which occurred on this day in 1943. If Never Again is to continue to resonate globally, this Friday offers the opportunity for a more determined and less equivocal moral stance.

For me, My Olympic Dream Is Over. The Olympics do not add to world peace, but state and corporate coffers, and may have outlived their benefit, especially if elemental morality be ignored.