Tag Archives: Olympics

Jew of the Week: Seteng Ayele

Ayele Seteng

Haile Satayin, a.k.a Ayele Seteng (b. 1955) was born in Ethiopia. He immigrated to Israel in 1991 as part of ‘Operation Solomon’, when 35 Israeli Air Force and El Al aircraft amazingly transported over 14,000 Ethiopians to Israel in just 36 hours. The secret operation was launched in response to the collapsing Ethiopian government, and subsequent rumours of war and attacks on Ethiopia’s Jews, known as Beta Israel. In Israel, Seteng pursued his dreams and became a professional long-distance runner. He soon won a number of Israeli national championships, then moved on to international competitions, and competed all over the world. In 2004, he represented Israel at the Athens Olympics, and at nearly fifty years of age, was the oldest track athlete there. Four years later, he qualified again for the Beijing Olympics, making him the oldest runner once more. He nearly made it to the London Olympics in 2012, too, despite being 57 years old. Of this he has said: “My age is old, but my heart is young.” His Tel-Aviv half-marathon (21 km) time of 1:03:43 and Venice Marathon (42 km) time of 2:14:21 are still Israeli records. The father of seven children, he has won 31 national titles, and holds the record for being the oldest person ever to compete in a IAAF World Championship. In 2011, an Israeli documentary, Seret Ratz (“Running Movie”) was made about him.

Passover Begins Tomorrow Evening!

Words of the Week

Pharaoh commanded his people: “Every son that is born shall be cast into the River” (Exodus 1:22). The Nile was the mainstay of the Egyptian economy and its most venerated god. Therein lay the deeper—still relevant—significance of Pharaoh’s decree: Today, too, Jewish survival depends on our ability to resist the dictum that children must be submerged within an educational system whose focus and goal is the attainment of a “career” and “economic success…”
– Menachem Mendel Schneerson, The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Jews of the Week: Sarah Hughes and Dylan Moscovitch

World-Class Figure Skaters

Sarah Hughes, with former president George W. Bush

Sarah Hughes (b. 1985) was born in New York to an Irish-Canadian father and a Jewish mother. She began ice skating when she was just three years old. By 1988 she won the US Junior Championships in figure skating, and the following year took silver at the World Junior Championships. After strong performances at a number of other events, Hughes qualified for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and graced the cover of TIME Magazine. Despite being just 16 years old, and the underdog, she won the gold medal at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Away from the rink, Hughes is an active breast cancer awareness spokesperson, inspired by her mother, who is a breast cancer survivor. For over a decade, Hughes has also worked with Figure Skating in Harlem, a program providing free skating lessons to disadvantaged girls, as well as Skate for Hope, and the Women’s Sports Foundation. She graduated from Yale University in 2009.

Dylan David Moscovitch

Dylan David Moscovitch (b. 1984) is a Canadian figure skater with Romanian, Russian, and South African Jewish roots. He began skating at 13 months, and went on to compete in pairs figure skating competitions. He won gold and a couple of silvers at Canadian Championships, as well as a silver at the Four Continents Championships in Japan. Moscovitch competed at the Sochi Olympics earlier this year and won silver there, too. When not on the ice, he teaches the Israeli martial art Krav Maga.

Words of the Week

Where is God found? Wherever you let Him in.
– Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe

Jews of the Week: Nili Block and Sarah Avraham

Don’t Mess With These Ladies

Nili Block and Sarah Avraham – Photo by Kobi Kalmanowitz

Nili Block was born in Baltimore, Maryland and made aliyah to Israel with her family when she was just 2 years old. At age 10, she joined her mother in Thai boxing classes. By 18, she won the KickBox World Cup in Hungary, a gold medal at the world kickboxing championship in Bangkok, and a European championship title, too. Block trains alongside Sarah Avraham, who also won the world championship in her division in Bangkok. Like Block, Avraham made aliyah with her family to Israel, hailing from India. Avraham was born in Mumbai to a Christian mother and a Hindi father who were both drawn to Judaism for many years and eventually converted. (They began the process with Rabbi Gavriel and Rebbetzin Rivka Holtzberg – who were tragically gunned down at their Chabad House in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.) Block and Avraham are the same age, and are both coached by Eddie Yusupov. The former is now a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces, while the latter is doing her part in Israel’s National Service. They are both Torah-observant Jews, keeping kosher and Shabbat even on their boxing tours. The two world champions hope to compete in the 2016 Olympics Games, if kickboxing will finally be included as an Olympic sport.

Words of the Week

Just as it is incumbent upon every Jew to put on tefillin every day, so is there an unequivocal duty which rests upon every individual, from the greatest scholar to the most simple of folk, to set aside a half-hour each day in which to think about the education of his children.
– Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch