Find your Inner Olympian

Sue Bird

As it hits Day 4 of the Olympics, most of the talk has been surrounding the USA swim and gymnastics teams, and whether or not they are competing at the level that many people want them to.

But let us focus on athletes who have not gotten as much attention–mainly the USA Women’s Basketball team and, for us here at the DCJCC, one of the players, Sue Bird.

Sue Bird, who currently plays for the WNBA team Seattle Storm,  holds a dual citizenship to both the USA and Israel.  The USA Women’s national team has so far cruised in their first two games of the preliminary rounds.

Aly Raisman

Not only do we have Sue Bird to root for, but  in the Women’s Gymnastics team final, we have yet another athlete to cheer for: Aly Raisman, who is competing for Olympic gold tonight and in the next few days for the All-Around Gold medal in gymnastics.  In this year and years past, many Jewish athletes have medaled in the Olympic games.

Join us here at the DCJCC as we start our very own fitness challenge next week–we’ll walk, bike, run and swim the length of England to meet our athletes at the games.

Find your inner Olympian!

Shabbat Surfing–Remember when Jeffrey Goldblum and Will Smith saved the world?

A lot of the Jewish blogosphere has gone ga-ga for Jason Lezak, and to a lesser extent his MOT teammate Garrett Weber-Gale after their amazing swim in the 4×100 relay. Observe:

Jeffery Goldberg tipped me off to perhaps the greatest headline since Independence Day was in movie theaters: “Two Jews and a Black Man Help Phelps Fulfill His Olympic Dream.”

Rachel Shukert wonders on Jewcy why Jews seem to be all over Olympic swimming. Her answer is classic, “Jews are good at swimming for the same reason I used to be good at giving hand jobs. Camp.”

Meredith Kesner Lewis at Mixed Multitudes claims to be rooting for the Red, White and Blue regardless of religion during the Olympics, but wonders, “Were Judaism to come up with a way to harness this power of peoplehood and pride that comes out during the Olympics, could we solve our continuity issues?”

Finally, the JTA has been all over the Beijing Olympics like, well, white on rice. If an Israeli or a Jew so much as sneezes near a medal stand, they’ll let you know about it.

In non-Olympics related surfing: Chaim Watzman comes up with a solution to the high-cost of Jewish living–move to Israel. None of the news coming out of Georgia is good, and Moment magazine’s new blog laid-out how it gets even worse for Israel.