July 11: Ramat Gan, Israel: Seventeenth incarnation of these Jewish Olympics: 7,700 total participants from 55 countries (i.e. Jewish athletes from around the globe, plus some Israeli Arab).
Since 1932, the games have been held roughly every four years except for a hiatus from 1938–1950, “interrupted” by the Nazi emergence in Germany, then the Holocaust and then, the subsequent battle for Israeli independence.
The games were initially conceived by 15 year–old Yosef Yekutieli, an Eretz Israel (Palestine) Russian–born teenager inspired by the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. After 6 years of preliminary conceptualizing and 14 years of proactive development by Yekutieli and the Jewish National Fund, the first games were held in 1932 (opened March 28, centered in the Tel Aviv/Ramat Gan area). About four hundred Jewish sportsmen participated.
1932 was significant to the organizers for being the 1800th anniversary of the Bar Kochba revolt (against Rome in c.132 CE).
For trivia experts, in the 2005 games, Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of US Corporation Comcast won a gold medal in squash.
The next games are scheduled for July 2009.