Anti-Israel activists show true colors by targeting teenage Jewish athletes

It’s hard not to despair these days, with reports of antisemitic incidents coming from all over the world, and on a daily basis. From a local rabbi’s “We Stand With Israel” sign being replaced with one accusing him of “genocide,” to attacks on synagogues worldwide, the headlines in the Jewish press are alarming.

So it’s essential to celebrate Jewish joy when we can, the resilience of our people, our culture and heritage.

That’s one reason why we were delighted that Pittsburgh was serving as host city to the JCC Maccabi Campus Games, an Olympic-style event for Jewish teenagers to showcase not only their athletic prowess, but their Jewish pride and connection. While we went to press before the Games concluded, we could see in just the first two days the positive impact on Jewish Pittsburgh, and on the 2,000 children from North America, Ukraine, Israel, Mexico, Great Britain, Argentina and Poland, who came together in competition and community.

The Maccabi Games are not political, but rather a robust opportunity to celebrate identity and infuse the joy of peoplehood in the younger generation.

But local haters couldn’t stand to let Jews do that.

Instead, several anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee, promoted a protest of the Games — and in doing so, showed their true colors.

On social media, pro-Palestinian organizations urged a wide protest of the Games on Monday, accusing Maccabi of being “part of a growing trend of sportswashing, where governments and allied institutions utilize international sporting events to enhance their image and conceal their misdeeds.”

The post continued: “This attempt to deflect attention from Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinians cannot be whitewashed with such propagandistic efforts to portray Israel as a normal country instead of what it is in actuality, an oppressive ethnocracy.”

What?

The teen athletes who came to Pittsburgh have nothing to do with the war between Hamas and Israel. They are children playing sports while showing their ethnic pride.

We don’t think it’s the sports that troubles the haters; it’s the ethnic pride.

And that’s where these anti-Israel miscreants have crossed the Rubicon from being purportedly anti-Israel to being bluntly anti-Jewish.

We need to call this what it is.

It is antisemitism and it is unacceptable.

Shame on these illiberal agitators for aspiring to throw cold water on Jewish teens playing soccer and baseball.

As it turns out, the number of protesters was anemic; in the first hour of the scheduled protest fewer than two dozen people showed up to intimidate the Jewish kids and their families who came to Pittsburgh to enjoy a sense of Jewish community. About 40 protesters showed up a bit later. They banged pots and pans and shouted, “Free Palestine.”

The Games proceeded as planned, with opening ceremonies Monday night showcasing Jewish peoplehood as delegations from various corners of the world took the stage amid applause from the thousands of spectators who had come to cheer them on.

But we shouldn’t forget the racist activity that transpired in Pittsburgh this week. Any pretense that these local pro-Palestinian groups are motivated solely by social justice issues and geopolitics has been stripped away irrefutably. By going after children playing ball, they crossed a line. PJC