Hoops for nets: Jewish businessmen play ball for African children
Tefillin and tikun olam are at the heart of Guinea-Bissau’s first-time appearance at the Games
Aaron Kalman is a former writer and breaking news editor for the Times of Israel
After 20 minutes, the Russian basketball team was dominating Guinea-Bissau 42-27. Things didn’t improve: The final score was a rout: 91-48.
For the African minnows, the loss wasn’t surprising. But making only 48 points was deeply frustrating: They were only one basket short of the magical 50-point mark. And those two points were a missed $5,000 donation to the delegation’s anti-malaria “It’s all net” fund-raising mission.
Still, the fund-raising is going extremely well. “I’m absolutely blown away by our charity efforts,” Andrew Szabo, head of Guinea Bissau’s delegation, told The Times of Israel in an interview conducted Tuesday, the day after the loss to Russia. The way he sees it, “Jews are responsible for what goes on in the world.”
In western Africa, the Hungarian-born Szabo elaborates, thousands of children die of malaria before the age of five. Buying $10 mosquito nets “can help save lives.” Before arriving in Israel for the Maccabiah, the delegation of 12 had hoped to raise $10,000. However, “as of Tuesday morning,” he says with a smile, “we have $18,700.”
Most of that money was raised outside of the Maccabiah, but “teams and people we became friends with around the breakfast table also gave some.”
The Maccabiah is more about making a Jewish statement than it is about gathering medals, Szabo says. Certainly for his country.
The team “is having fun, enjoying ourselves. Sometimes after we lose we’re happier than teams that won.”
Noting that most teams have some sort of athletic core, he says his team — made up of Jews doing business in the African country — is different.
“Some of our players are religious, and believe in spreading Jewish ideas like praying with tefillin,” he says. After games, the kippa-wearing members of the team can be seen offering their opponents a chance to put the phylacteries on hand and head. This too, Szabo says, helps raise money for the fight against malaria. “We have an anonymous donor who gives $10, that’s one mosquito net, for every person who puts on tefillin.”
Combining prayer with charity, Szabo states, “embodies the Jewish spirit.” In fact, he says one of his suggestions to the organizing body is that, in future Maccabiah events, each delegation be required to fund raise for a charity of its choice.
Szabo’s journey to the Maccabiah took some time, but when it happened it was “a euphoric moment.” Born and raised in communist Hungary, he “didn’t have the chance to take part,” Szabo says of earlier Maccabiahs. After he turned 40, though, he decided to take some time to focus on things he always wanted to do. “The Maccabiah was always on my bucket list.”
Four years ago, he became a citizen of Guinea-Bissau, a small country on the African coast with an annual budget smaller than that of many Israeli companies. In 2011 he was the lone representative of the country at the European Maccabi games (where he won bronze in the badminton doubles).
Last week he marched into the Maccabiah’s opening ceremony in Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium with 12 athletes alongside him and Guinea-Bissau’s flag proudly in front of him. The team was one of 21 delegations from smaller Jewish communities represented at the Games for the first time. At some points, he admits, “I had tears in my eyes.”
The opening ceremony, Szabo says, was “old school, classic Zionist pride,” particularly poignant at time when, the way he sees it, “Zionism around the world is dying.” Hearing President Shimon Peres welcome the athletes and “tell us Israel is ‘your home, your country. You belong,’ was amazing.”
Asked whether he thought his new country’s appearance would be a one-time event, Szabo made it clear he wanted it to become a tradition. He said he also hoped his two eldest daughters would be able to participate in the 2017 Maccabiah. But regardless of the size of the delegation, he promises, “I will be here as long as I live.”
The Times of Israel Community.