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 Jewish Women and the Olympic GamesBobbie Rosenfeld (1904–1969) Bobbie Rosenfeld, ready for a race. Photo courtesy of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. As part of JWA's goal of documenting the lives and accomplishments of North American Jewish women we have featured runner Bobbie Rosenfeld as a Woman of Valor. Gold and Silver medallist Rosenfeld was one of Canada's most outstanding athletes. A celebrated track and field star, she excelled at virtually every sport from tennis to softball to ice hockey. With almost no formal coaching, Rosenfeld shattered national records and starred at the 1928 Olympics, the first year women were allowed to compete in track and field events. As a legendary talent and later as a sports columnist, she helped smash traditional barriers to women's participation in athletics. Charlotte Epstein (1884–1938) Charlotte Epstein Photo Credit: Slater, Robert. Great Jews in Sports, (New York, Jonathan David Publishers, Inc.,1983), p. 65. Known as "Mother of Women's Swimming in America," Epstein founded the Women's Swimming Association and coached the Women's Olympic Swimming Team in the 1920s. Epstein was born in New York City where she became a court stenographer. In 1917, after she and a few other businesswomen expressed their desire to swim after work for exercise, Epstein formed the Women's Swimming Association to promote the health benefits of the sport. As manager and president of the WSA, Epstein guided many of its members to Olympic victory; she herself was the U.S. Women's Olympic Swimming Team's manager for the 1920, 1924, and 1928 games. Swimmers under her leadership won thirty national championships and set fifty-one world records. In 1935, Epstein chaired the swimming committee in charge of team selection at the second Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv; the next year, she boycotted the Olympics in Berlin in protest over Nazi policies. Lillian Copeland (1904–1964) Lillian Copeland Photo Credit: Amateur Athletic Foundation. Copeland was an Olympic champion in the discus throw. She was born in New York to Minnie Drasnin, a Polish immigrant. After her father died, she was raised by her mother and step-father Abraham Copeland in Los Angeles, California. A four-time national champion in shot put, Copeland switched to the discus throw and set a new world record at the 1928 Olympic trials. She was the first woman to win a silver medal for the discus throw and later broke the Olympic and world records to win a gold at the 1932 Olympics. She played in the 1935 (Second) World Maccabiah games but boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. A law school graduate, Copeland joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 1936 and worked there until her retirement in 1960. Syd Koff (1912–1999)The United States participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin—the "Nazi Olympics"—sending the largest delegation of any country (312 athletes) to Germany. Not every athlete who qualified for the team chose to go, however. Track and field athletes Milton Green, Norman Cahners, and Lillian Copeland chose not to go. Syd Koff, winner of four gold medals at the Maccabean games in 1932, was eligible to compete in the high jump and the broad jump yet decided not to go to Berlin. Syd (born Sybil Tabachnikoff) who as a girl had to sneak out of her parents' home to participate in track and field events, never won an Olympic medal. Margaret Bergmann Lambert (1919– )Hoping "to show what a Jew could do," and "to use [her] talent as a weapon against Nazi ideology," Margaret Lambert (nicknamed Gretel) wanted to compete in the 1936 Olympics for Germany. Though she tied the German high-jump record, she was not allowed to compete. Lambert emigrated to the United States in 1937. The stadium she was not allowed to enter as an athlete in 1936 is now named for her. Current Olympians2006 Jewish-American Olympians to watch for in Turin!
Links to related resourcesJewishSports.com
Maccabiah Games
U.S. Olympic Team
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