PITTSBURGH, PA - On Monday, protestors gathered in Oakland to protest the JCC (Jewish Community Center/Jewish Community Camps) Maccabi Games being hosted at the University of Pittsburgh. With over 2,000 Jewish teenagers participating, the JCC Maccabi Games are the largest sporting competition of Jewish teenagers in the world.
On the surface, the JCC Maccabi Games appears to be an innocent event for Jewish youth, but activists say it has a far more sinister appeal.
“JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) Pittsburgh opposes the JCC Maccabi Games bringing Israeli emissaries to Pitt campus,” the group said in a statement ahead of the protests. “The Games’ underlying purpose is to promote Jewish teens’ connections to and uncritical support of the state of Israel. It is this – the normalization of unquestioning allegiance to the state of Israel within our Jewish community – that we oppose.”
Pittsburgh sports author Bob Ross says the games are an attempt to “sportswash” the negative publicity of Israel’s actions.
“It’s ‘sportswashing,’” says Bob Ross. ”The state of Israel, for quite some time, has made a very intentional effort to use sports, to use art, to use music, to use ‘culture’ as a way to rebrand the nation state, rebrand it away from the fact that it's a genocidal apartheid rogue state, and make it seem like this normal state.”
More sinister, their marketing is aimed at Jewish teenagers. Much like birthright trips that allow Jewish youth to go to Israel for free, the aim of these games is to instill an affinity for Israel among primarily Jewish youth. The 2026 Maccabi games are going to be held in Israel and many of those who participate in the games in Pittsburgh will be able to receive subsidized travel to Israel.
“The Maccabi Games are very much like a birthright sort of endeavor to young Jews in particular,” says Ross. “It's saying, come play basketball or hockey or gymnastics or whatever it is that you do, and hey, you're going to meet all these awesome Israelis. And hey, why don't you come to visit Israel?’”
Ross says that given the games’s propaganda role, it's crucial to protest them.
“I think, there's a responsibility for all of us to educate folks, including young people, that this is not an innocent ploy,” says Ross. “This is quite sinister, and they are trying to literally bring these kids into the fold of the genocidal state. And that's sickening.”
On Thursday, Ross will moderate a talk by the Jewish sportswriter Dave Zirin, The Nation’s Sports editor, at the Carnegie Library in Lawrenceville, titled, “How Israel Uses Sports to Deflect From War Crime.” The hybrid event starts at 6 PM at 279 Fisk Street and will be broadcast on Zoom as well.
