Resilience in Action: Israel at the Paris Paralympics
By Randy Pinsky
Israeli athletes collected an all-time record of medals in the Paris 2024 Olympics and are expected to perform as well - if not better- at the upcoming Paralympics. The country had actually been one of the pioneering teams in the early days of the Games, where sports were understood as more than just rehabilitation and therapy.
For those watching the Paralympics, this is Israel at its finest, demonstrating the power of mind over body, resilience over difficulty and the ability to always find a way.
The History of the Paralympics
Viewing the thousands of disabled athletes excelling in sports - some missing limbs, some in wheelchairs, all performing exceptional acts of strength - it is difficult to remember a time before the Paralympics. Few know that the founder was a German-born Orthodox Jewish man who escaped Nazi Germany to launch a revolutionary approach for injured servicemen.
A promising candidate for medical school, Ludwig Guttman (1899-1980) volunteered at the local Accident Hospital for Coal Miners as a young adult. An experience that would be forever seared in his memory in 1917 was a miner with a spinal cord injury, who, according to protocol, was encased in plaster and left immobile, passing away from treatable infections.
Guttman could not reconcile with how the man’s life could have been potentially saved. There and then, he vowed to change medical protocol when he himself would become a medical practitioner.
Changing the Trend
Guttman started medical studies in 1918 at the University of Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland. With the rising tide of Nazism however, Jewish people were banned from practicing medicine so upon receiving a research visa to England, Guttman escaped with his family.
In 1943, he was invited to direct the new National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital near London for injured and paralyzed British WWll servicemen. This was his chance.
Guttman felt that with the proper training and targeted activities, a measure of mobility could be regained, and that there could be more of a future than resigning to a life in bed.
He therefore agreed to direct the center- on the condition that he would be allowed to try his admittedly revolutionary therapeutic methods.
Guttman would have to overcome skepticism expressed by both his colleagues in the medical community, as well as patients themselves to claims that they could reintegrate as productive members of society. With his indomitable personality and charisma, he “threw out the fatalistic care regime, challenged the negative staff and insisted his patients fight back.”
Pushing Boundaries
Guttman’s methods were truly unconventional, bringing in army physical trainers to throw balls at patients and provoking them to toss them back. The 2012 movie, “The Best of Men”, winner of the 2014 Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, depicts his innovative methods. According to an article by the BBC, “he made them train. He made them lift weights. He made them move. And it worked.”
In Guttman’s own words, “By instilling self-respect, self-discipline, a competitive spirit and comradeship, sport develops mental attitudes that are essential for social reintegration.”
The Games- More Than Just An Idea
Contesting the traditionally uninspiring rehab exercises, Guttman adapted sports to patient abilities, “forever chang[ing] the way society views[ed] people with handicaps and the way they view[ed] themselves.”
He realized that what was really needed was an opportunity for the athletes to prove themselves. On July 28, 1948, the first official Stoke Mandeville athletic competition for wheelchair athletes was launched in archery, intentionally coinciding with the start of the London Olympics. Guttman stated his hope for a “ time when this sports event would be truly international…and the disabled person's equivalent of the Olympic Games.”
In 1960, the competition was relaunched as the Paralympics with ‘para’- originally referring to ‘paraplegic’ - expanding to being ‘parallel’ to the Olympics; a critical statement from the outset.
Israel at the Helm of Paralympic Prowess
Para athletes come from a host of different lived experiences; some are born with challenges, others, became disabled through accidents. In the case of Israel, many para-athletes have been victims of terror attacks or conflict.
Tel Aviv’s Beit Halochem Sport Center for Disabled Veterans is particularly known for its innovative approaches for using sports for skillbuilding and empowerment. According to Boaz Kramer, chief executive of the Israel Sports Center for the Disabled, “Israel was one of the first countries to establish a full program for disabled athletes in the 1950s, and Israel and the UK are the two countries with the longest tradition of wheelchair sports.”
Nineteen-year old Ami Hasdai is one such athlete. Shot in the neck during a military operation in the West Bank in 2002, he spent more than a week in a coma. Although his family was warned he would never walk, talk or lead an active life, Hasdai has defeated the odds and is currently making his Paralympic debut in handcycling.
And They’re Off!
While Israel earned its first Olympic gold medal in 2004, it has already collected 124 gold medals in the Paralympic Games.
Israel has participated in every Summer Games since 1960. The country’s first Winter Paralympian was Orthodox alpine skier Sheina Vaspi who made history in the 2022 Beijing Games for skiing in a skirt.
One of the most decorated medalists in Paralympic history is Israel’s legend Zipora Rubin-Rosenbaum. Excelling in numerous sports, including swimming, table tennis and wheelchair basketball, she brought home thirty-one medals between 1964 and 1988, fifteen of which were gold.
In reflecting on the 1964 Tokyo Paralympic Games, she shared, “We marched at the delegation parade at the Olympic Stadium, dressed in the colors of the flag…I thought, ‘I am an athlete, not a disabled person’. Until then I’d had a very hard time…But in Tokyo, I fulfilled my dream. When I heard our anthem, I felt ‘I am a success after all’.”
Triumph over Tragedy
The current context has demonstrated how sport can truly play a critical role for rehabilitating a traumatized society.
In anticipation of the 2028 Summer Games,Israel’s Paralympic Committee has spearheaded a project informally called ‘From Gaza to LA’. Committee Chair and former Paralympian Moshe Matalon regularly presents at rehab centers, challenging patients to consider opportunities in their future that had not been in their original plans.
When soldier Ido Kander approached a booby-trapped tunnel in Gaza on November 9, 2023, he was seriously wounded, losing several of his fellow soldiers.Introduced to wheelchair sports while in rehab, he shared, “Nothing can save you like sports after you’ve laid down for so much time doing nothing.”
One of Israel’s flag bearers, Adam Berdichevsky, is returning for his third Paralympics. A survivor of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak near the Gaza border, he felt the need to compete out of a“strong desire to represent the country during these times.” This sentiment was echoed by Guy Sasson, Israel-French tennis star and second-time Paralympian who dedicated his victory at the French Open challenge in June to Israel and the hostages.
After witnessing the harassment of Israeli athletes at the Olympics and of Israeli singer Eden Golan at the Eurovision Singing Contest, a new addition this year is an Israeli cheerleading team, sponsored by El Al Airlines. The group, composed of influencers including Golan, injured soldiers, survivors and youth from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhakri, is there to provide emotional support and encouragement to all Israeli Paralympians.
“Having faced antisemitism [myself], I hope to empower Israel's Paralympics team,” shared Golan.
Best of luck to all the Paralympic athletes in Paris- bravo for your resilience and inner strength.
