Com­bin­ing sports, dreams, grit, and sur­pris­es, this delight­ful pic­ture book deliv­ers the ori­gins of the ​“Jew­ish Olympics,” the Mac­cabi­ah Games in Israel. The sto­ry reveals the birth of a major inter­na­tion­al event while under­lin­ing the mes­sage that one per­son tru­ly can make a dif­fer­ence. Read­ers absorb the sus­pense of wait­ing for twen­ty years for an idea to come to fruition.

Yosef Yeku­tieli, a teenag­er, lis­tens on the radio to the 1912 Sum­mer Olympics in Swe­den; few Jew­ish ath­letes com­pete. He wants Jews from all over to com­pete in Israel despite the fact there is no coun­try yet (Israel is at that time part of the Ottoman Empire), no facil­i­ties, and no orga­ni­za­tions to help. Over time, Josef per­sists despite non-believ­ers. He finds an own­er to donate land for the sta­di­um and arranges for the rail­road to donate cin­ders for the track. He assigns swim­ming to the nat­ur­al har­bors, sav­ing on build­ing a pool.

How can they invite Jew­ish ath­letes world­wide? Jews live in count­less coun­tries; no one speaks the same lan­guage or reads the same news­pa­pers. Few have tele­phones. The solu­tion: motor­cy­cle rid­ers! These motor­cy­cle rid­ers cross moun­tains and deserts from Haifa to Bel­gium, from Egypt to London. 

One year lat­er, the first games are held in Tel Aviv. From the tenac­i­ty of one man cling­ing to his teenage dream, we gain the third-largest sport­ing event in the world: ten thou­sand Jew­ish ath­letes from eighty nations every four years in the coun­try of Israel.

The book is both pep­py and per­son­able. Most of the text is dia­logue and con­ver­sa­tions rather than nar­ra­tive. The pic­tures are joy­ous, active, and focused on appeal­ing indi­vid­u­als. The end­note bursts with infor­ma­tion. Read­ers will be eager to vic­ar­i­ous­ly expe­ri­ence these his­tor­i­cal events.