Journalist surveys ‘underreported’ Maccabiah Games

What do basketball player and coach Larry Brown, swimmers Jason Lezak and Mark Spitz, and gymnast Mitch Gaylord have in common?

They’re among a group of 25 individuals who have won medals in both the Olympic Games and the Maccabiah Games, as revealed in a chart at the back of Ron Kaplan’s new book, “The Jewish Olympics: The History of the Maccabiah Games” (Skyhorse Publishing),

While Spitz competed in the 1965 Maccabiah Games before winning nine Olympic golds (including seven in 1972 alone), Lezak first took part in the Maccabiah Games in 2009, after he had already been to the Olympics three times. The same path was taken by Lenny Krayzelburg, who tasted Olympic gold a year before he swam in the 2001 Maccabiah Games.

“It’s like walking on the Moon. What do you do for an encore?” Kaplan said in an interview, referring to winning an Olympic medal. For Krayzelburg and others, the Maccabiah Games provided the answer. 

“[Krayzelburg] decided he knew about these games, and he wanted to get in touch with his Jewish heritage, so that’s why he became an athlete there and a spokesman for the games—and a very vocal spokesman, a very big supporter,” said Kaplan.

The sports and features editor of the New Jersey Jewish News weekly newspaper, Kaplan runs the award-winning blog “Kaplan’s Korner on Jews and Sports” and previously penned the 2013 book “501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die.” Why focus now on the Maccabiah Games?

“To be slightly clichéd, I didn’t choose the topic, the topic chose me,” Kaplan said. “This actually came about because the publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, asked someone else to do the book.” 

That was Howard Megdal, author of the popular 2009 book “The Baseball Talmud.” Rather than writing the Maccabiah Games book, Megdal recommended Kaplan, who proceeded to delve into the history of the Israel-based sports competition that since 1932 has grown from 390 athletes across 14 countries to 9,000 athletes from 78 countries during its most recent iteration in July 2013.