As a Jewish guy who started judo in 1966 at the Jewish ‘Y’ in my hometown of Pittsburgh I’m particularly fascinated by how big judo is in Israel. With the latest IJF Grand Slam held in Israel, here some articles I collected and links over the last year I share as my Black Belt Blog for this week. (Video Highlights & American Judo Article on Recent Grand Slam in Israel)

Israeli judoka Sagi Muki wins gold at Tel Aviv Grand Slam 2-17-23

Raz Hershko wins Israel’s second gold at judo Grand Slam in Tel Aviv

Saeid Mollaei Turns 30 (Now 31!)

Here you can watch ALL IJF World Judo Tour events LIVE, along with various Judo Highlight shows, video series, best moments, athlete interviews …

Saeid Mollaei sacrificed a lifetime for a dream. He did it of his own free will and he did it in Japan at a place called the Budokan. Fate has reasons that reasons does not know, but when it pays justice it has an unmistakable flavor. Today is the birthday of Saeid who turns 30.

In 2019 Tokyo was the scene of a bad action, espionage and suspense movie, whose main actor was Mollaei. Bad because when politics penetrates the field of sport things usually end badly and sometimes very badly. Mollaei’s sin was not being born in Iran. His sin was not accepting orders and his penance was an ordeal that cost him much more than a person can bear, because to be free he had to renounce everything. The story is well known. What is little known, because it has not been offered, is Mollaei’s life between 2019 and 2021.

“It was the hardest decision of my life because it meant giving up my life in order to compete as a normal person.” Normality, that condition that is only understood once lost. Saeid rebuilt his life with parsimony and a non-negotiable goal: the Tokyo Olympics. “That’s why I left Iran and that’s why I haven’t seen my family since 2019: to be here.” Little by little, “step by step,” as he puts it, Saeid raised his head from under the water in Germany, where he has lived ever since.

“I barely spoke German. I was afraid of possible reprisals from the Iranian regime, not only for me, but for my wife and of course, my parents and brothers, who are still in Iran.”

Saeid has had to learn to look over his shoulder and resume his Olympic preparation.

They are periods of four years, five this time. Any little misstep can cost a medal because judoka plan complex but necessary cycles to get to the peak on the right day. He also received a Mongolian passport, which has allowed him to participate in the race to Tokyo.

“It was not the ideal preparation, quite the opposite. I’ve never lost hope because I knew I could get a good result in Japan.” Mollaei took a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Saeid slept that night with the silver medal. “I have spent half the night kissing the medal.”

Israeli Mixed Judo Team Wins Bronze, Defeating Russia 4-1 at Tokyo Olympics

By JACK GUEZ / AFP – July 31, 2021

The Israeli mixed judo team won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games on Saturday, after defeating Russia 4-1 in the consolation bracket.

This is Israel’s second Olympic medal at Tokyo 2020 after Taekwondo fighter Avishag Semberg also won a bronze medal last week.

Israeli judokas Timna Nelson-Levy, Ori Sasson, Li Kochman, Gili Sharir, Tohar Butbul, Peter Paltchik, Sagi Muki, and Raz Hershko gave an impressive performance and snatched Israel’s 11th Olympic medal overall. This is Israel’s first team medal.

Israeli judokas Timna Nelson-Levy, Ori Sasson, Li Kochman, Gili Sharir, Tohar Butbul, Peter Paltchik, Sagi Muki, and Raz Hershko gave an impressive performance snatching Israel’s 11th Olympic medal overall.

Earlier, the Israeli team won 4-2 against Brazil and moved to the consolation bracket to compete against Russia. Israel lost 4-3 to France in the quarterfinals, which prevented the mixed team from qualifying for the semi-finals.

In 2004, Arik Zeevi won the bronze at the Athens Olympics — the pinnacle of a five-year spree in which he won three golds and a silver at the European Judo Championships. The following year, Israel took the team gold in that tournament. And in 2012, Zeevi recaptured the gold at age 35.

Four years later, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Israel won two bronzes in judo, bringing the country’s total of Olympic medals to nine — four in judo. In 2018, the European Championships were held in Tel Aviv.

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In 1992, judokas Yael Arad and Oren Smadja won silver and bronze medals, respectively, at the women’s and men’s competitions in the Barcelona Olympics, becoming the first Israeli athletes to bring home an Olympic medal for that country. Their achievements and an infusion of judo masters from the Soviet Union like Romanitsky, spurred a national love affair with the sport, which has led to additional accomplishments and turned Israel into a power in the field in both men’s and women’s competitions.

At the 2012 Olympics in London, Ahmad Awad, a judoka from Egypt, was widely thought to have feigned an injury to avoid a fight with Israel’s Tal Flicker. In 2015, a Palestinian judoka declined a match with another Israeli, and an Egyptian one, Ramadan Darwish, declined to shake Zeevi’s hand after losing to the Israeli. The same Egyptian also refused to shake hands in 2012.

How Israel Became a Judo Superpower

After winning two medals in the ’92 Olympics, Israel’s love of success drove the sport’s unlikely growth in the country.

By Cnaan Liphshiz – July 18, 2021

When he immigrated to Israel from his native Ukraine in the early 1990s, judo master Igor Romanitsky was already resigned to quitting the sport professionally and pursuing a medical career. “Israel wasn’t known for its judo scene then, and I had a medical degree,” Romanitsky, now 57, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I assumed my days as a judoka were over.”

But Romanitsky, a father of two from Modiin, was in for a surprise. In 1992, judokas Yael Arad and Oren Smadja won silver and bronze medals, respectively, at the women’s and men’s competitions in the Barcelona Olympics, becoming the first Israeli athletes to bring home an Olympic medal for that country. Their achievements and an infusion of judo masters from the Soviet Union like Romanitsky, spurred a national love affair with the sport, which has led to additional accomplishments and turned Israel into a power in the field in both men’s and women’s competitions.

Smadja, in a famous quote following his victory, encapsulated the story of judo in Israel when he summarized his rise from obscurity: “I aimed to come in small and come out big,” he said.

In 2004, Arik Zeevi won the bronze at the Athens Olympics — the pinnacle of a five-year spree in which he won three golds and a silver at the European Judo Championships. The following year, Israel took the team gold in that tournament. And in 2012, Zeevi recaptured the gold at age 35.

Israel’s first Olympic medalist Yael Arad with late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Jerusalem, 1992. Credit: Yaakov Saar

(Judo’s divisions don’t necessarily correspond to geography. Israel is one of several non-European nations competing in the European tournament, along with Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Brazil.)

Once bullied for her weight, this Israeli judoka is heading to the OlympicsIranian judo star in Tel Aviv: ‘We were taught to hate Israelis’Judo Federation suspends Iran after it banned athlete from competing against Israeli

Four years later, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Israel won two bronzes in judo, bringing the country’s total of Olympic medals to nine — four in judo. In 2018, the European Championships were held in Tel Aviv.

Ori Sasson celebrates after winning a bronze medal in Rio, 2016. Credit: Markus Schreiber, AP / מרקוס

“I saw firsthand how judo became big. Suddenly all the kids wanted judo classes,” said Romanitsky, who now runs Sakura, a prestigious judo school in the central Israeli city of Modiin. Several of its graduates have earned black belts, a rank signifying expertise. Instead of starting a medical practice, Romanitsky recognized the opportunity to continue practicing judo, his primary passion, by coaching.

Most judokas aren’t affiliated with the Israel Judo Association, the main nonprofit organization regulating the sport. But 500 judokas from across the country showed up to a charity event in 2015 organized by Romanitsky and his Sakura judo school, suggesting the number of serious participants in the sport is in the thousands, he said.

The 2018 European Championships in Tel Aviv had 4,000 spectators, a prodigious number that championship tournaments in Japan sometimes don’t reach. Israel’s national team is a regular guest at the prime minister’s residence, where they have been invited for photo ops after major successes. “I usually tell foreign leaders that Israel is a world power in high-tech,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at such a meeting in 2019. “Now, I add that we’re a judo superpower, and that’s not self-evident.”

Much of the fascination of many judo fans in Israel stems from their national pride and love of success rather than a genuine appreciation of the sport, people familiar with the field say. Silent, fast and involving only two opponents in a state of utter concentration, judo inspires neither the ecstatic togetherness of soccer nor the thrill of boxing, where blood and knockouts are common. Fights are over within minutes, sometimes seconds, typically when one opponent flips the other on their back.

“The 2018 European Championship in Tel Aviv was sold out not thanks to the love of judo but because it offered the opportunity to shed a tear with ‘Hatikvah’ on the winner’s podium,” wrote Paz Chasdai, a sports columnist for the Walla website, referencing the Israeli national anthem. Fans of alternative sports — meaning, in Israel, everything that’s not soccer and basketball — “are hitchhikers in Israel. They don’t love the sports; they’re looking for a winning ticket,” he wrote in 2019.

Romanitsky’s story signifies how crucial aliyah, or immigration, has been to Israel’s judo success. Many of the people who pioneered judo in Israel were immigrants from Europe and Africa. “In the 1990s, this strong infrastructure got an infusion of talent from the former Soviet Union, where judo was a major sport, and the effects have been phenomenal,” Romanitsky said.

In Russia, the popularity of judo is evinced by none other than President Vladimir Putin, a black belt who competed when he was younger. His mentor and judo coach, Anatoly Rakhlin, was Jewish, and Putin attended Rakhlin’s funeral in 2013.

Judo talent that arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union included trainers like Pavel Musin, who trained Alice Schlesinger, an Israeli winner of six gold medals in European championships since 2013, and Alex Ashkenazi, who coached Zeevi and headed the Israeli national team for many years until 2000.

At the 2019 meeting with Israel’s national team, Netanyahu said that Israel’s judo victories “help us reach foreign audiences, including in Arab countries.”

But Israel’s outsized presence in the judo world has also created some awkward situations involving Arab and Iranian athletes whose countries boycott the Jewish state as a matter of principle or are in a political dispute with it.

At the 2012 Olympics in London, Ahmad Awad, a judoka from Egypt, was widely thought to have feigned an injury to avoid a fight with Israel’s Tal Flicker. In 2015, a Palestinian judoka declined a match with another Israeli, and an Egyptian one, Ramadan Darwish, declined to shake Zeevi’s hand after losing to the Israeli. The same Egyptian also refused to shake hands in 2012.

But judo has facilitated some moments of geopolitical cooperation, too. In 2018, the Judo Grand Slam tournament in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, became the first major sporting event in an Arab country where Israeli athletes performed under their flag and the Israeli anthem was played. Israel took five medals there. Two years later, the two countries signed a historic normalization agreement.

In February this year, an Iranian judoka, Saeid Mollaei, who had been forbidden to compete against Israelis as per Iran’s policy of nonrecognition of Israel, visited Israel in defiance of authorities in Tehran. He said he felt safe and happy to visit and thanked his “many Israeli friends.”

Mollaei sought and received political asylum in Germany in 2019 after authorities in Iran ordered him not to show up — and technically lose — a fight against Sagi Muki, an Israeli judoka. Mollaei did as he was ordered, but then fled to Germany, saying he feared a return following conflict with his superiors over the Tokyo fight.

Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei, representing Mongolia, in Tel Aviv, 2021. Credit: Israeli Judo Federation

He holds Mongolian citizenship and competes for that country while living in Germany. In recent months, Mollaei has helped train the Israeli judo Olympic delegation to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The formidable 12-person team includes Muki, a former world champion in the under-81 kilogram category; Ori Sasson, the bronze medal winner at the 2016 Olympics; and Timna Nelson Levi, who won bronze at the 2016 European Championships in her weight class of under 57 kilograms.

Though Israel is an international judo powerhouse, the sport may never become as popular there as soccer or basketball. Still, a growing number of Israelis are learning about the nuances of the martial art, a highly technical sport where the untrained eye can easily miss much of the action.

“Judo’s great accomplishment in Israel is to make Israelis, who are used to watching only soccer, really observe the fights,” Chasdai wrote. “Israeli viewers by now know not to rejoice when they see the opponent slammed (wait for the replay!) and can already size up the fighters, aware of the effort and strength the matches require. In short, it has forced us to briefly abandon the soccer superheroes of the Super League — and watch actual sports.”

More articles:

The True Story of a Fight for LifeJNS on Algerian Judoka 10 Year BanAlgerian Judoka Suspended for Ten YearsReddit on Algerian Judo Champion NoreenThe Generosity of Our Emotional EducationPalestine Judo Team Reported to IJF by IsraelOpinion | The IOC finally takes a stand – The Washington PostIsrael a Peaceful Country of JudoIsraeli Judokas win gold bronze in European-CupIsrael to Host Veterans in December of 2022Israel Takes 4 Medals in European ChampionshipsIsraeli Olympic medalist Ori Sasson to retire from judoIsraeli judoka Timna Nelson-Levy has eyes set on Olympic gold in ParisSaeid Mollaei Awarded by International Fair play CommitteeWhen Did Israelis Become So Good at JudoIsrael’s Youth Judo ChampionsIsraeli Raz Hershko Catches Gold AgainIranian judoka flees to Germany over friendship with Israeli athleteJNS Article on Iranian judoka fleeing to GermanyIsraeli athletes need more support – editorialGerbi Comes OutIsrael Wins Bronze Medal At World Judo ChampionshipIsrael’s Azran Takes Silver at World Taekwondo ChampionshipsMazel Tov! Israeli judo champion Sagi Muki is engaged

(From Right to Left) Yarden Gerbi, Me, Juan Montenegro, Brain Dooley & his dad, Jerry

On Another Note:

Since the late 1980’s people have been noting the resemblance between me and Bruce Willis. As such I wish him Godspeed with his diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia.

Calendar:

February – 2023

25th Saturday – Las Vegas Judo Championships, Henderson, NV

March – 2023

5th Sunday – Taishi’s 13th Anniversary Tournament, Cerritos, CA

18th Saturday & 19th Sunday – Youth National Championships, Lubbock, TX

25th Saturday – Shoshinkan’s Annual Kosen Tournament, Las Vegas, NV

26th Sunday – Shoshinkan’s Shintaro Higashi Clinic, Las Vegas, NV

April – 2023

1st Saturday & 2nd Sunday – High School & Collegiate Nationals, San Jose, CA

2nd Sunday – Mojica Tournament (16 & Under), Baldwin Park, CA

15th Saturday – Couchigian Memorial Tournament, Las Vegas, NV

16th Sunday – Ryoku’s Amarilis Savon Clinic, Las Vegas, NV

16th Sunday – Garden State Open Judo Classic, Wayne NJ

22nd Saturday – Arizona State Championships, Tucson, AZ

29th Saturday & 30th Sunday – Golden State Open, Azusa, CA

May – 2023

7th Sunday – CJI State Championships, San Francisco, CA

20th Saturday & 21st Sunday – Senior National Championships, Spokane, WA

June – 2023

4th Sunday – Nanka Spring Tournament, Westminster, CA

16th Friday to 18th Sunday – USA Judo Junior Olympics, Shreveport, LA

24th Saturday – Sensei Gary’s Birthday Scrimmage, Claremont, CA

25th Sunday – U.S. Adaptive Judo Championships, Riverside, CA

July – 2023

7th Friday to 9th Sunday – USJF & USJA Summer Nationals, New York, NY

16th Sunday – CA State Games, San Diego, CA

August – 2023

6th Sunday – Nikkei Games Budo Tournament, Cypress, CA

September – 2023

24th Sunday – Nanka Fall Tournament, Westminster, CA

October – 2023

1st Sunday – Capitol Open Judo Championships, Sacramento, CA

22nd Sunday – Fresno Invitational Tournament, Fresno, CA

29th Sunday – Fight for a Cure Women’s Tournament & Clinic, Riverside, CA

November – 2023

1st Wednesday to 3rd Friday – IJF World Veterans Championships, Abu Dhabi, UAE

5th Sunday – Nanka Team Tournament, Westminster, CA

19th Sunday – Presidents Cup National Championships, Irving, TX

December – 2023

8th Friday to 10th Sunday – Nanka Winter Nationals & Clinics, Azusa, CA

April – 2024

7th Sunday – Nanka Spring Tournament, Westminster, CA

May – 2024

5th Sunday – Nanka West Coast Invitational, Westminster, CA

June – 2024

28th Friday to 30th Sunday – USJF & USJA Summer Nationals, Tacoma. WA

September – 2024

29th Sunday – Nanka Fall Tournament, Westminster, CA

October – 2024

20th Sunday – Nanka Team Tournament, Westminster, CA

December – 2024

6th Friday to 8th Sunday – Nanka Winter Nationals & Clinics, Azusa, CA

I’m always looking for new subjects to write about regarding judo as well as contributions from my readers. Please send them to gary@garygoltz.com, thanks.

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