Happy Women’s History Month! Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish women’s stories, this month and every month, by making a gift today!
Close [x]

Show [+]

Olympics

Content type
Collection

Sports in Austria 1918-1938

This article gives an overview of the participation of Jewish women in Austrian sport from the Habsburg monarchy to the present day. Drawing on selected biographies of sportswomen and functionaries, and with a regional focus on the capital city of Vienna, it explores the double relationship between female emancipation and Jewish self-assertion in an environment that had long been male-dominated and anti-Semitic.

Olympic athlete Caster Semenya

Restricting Semenya is Sexist and Violates Human Rights

Molly Weiner

By saying a woman can only be defined as female and enjoy success if she has an arbitrary amount of testosterone, the IAAF has turned the hormone into something it is not: a myth of male greatness.

Ilona Elek / Sada Jacobson

Fencers

Riposte like a Girl

Ilona Elek

Hailed as one of the greatest female fencers of all time, Ilona Elek won her first Olympic gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Yael Arad

Yael Arad celebrated an unprecedented victory in 1992 when she won the Olympic silver medal for judo, making her the first Israeli Olympic medalist for any sport.

Loren Galler-Rabinowitz

A champion in two very different fields, Loren Galler-Rabinowitz took home the bronze medal for ice dancing in 2004, then competed in the 2011 Miss America Pageant as Miss Massachusetts.

Emily Jacobson

Emily Jacobson, raised by a family of fencers, reached the pinnacle of her career when she competed in the 2004 Olympics, which was the first time women were allowed to compete as sabre fencers.

Sada Jacobson

Sada Jacobson won the bronze medal for sabre fencing at the 2004 Olympics (the first Olympics where women were allowed to compete in sabre), then did one better in 2008, bringing home both a silver and another bronze medal.

Emily Hughes

Emily Hughes showed great promise as an Olympic figure skater, but retired young to pursue the possibilities of a career in business.

Sasha Cohen

Figure skater Alexandra “Sasha” Cohen won a silver medal at the 2006 Olympics and popularized the difficult I-spin, which many now call the “Sasha spin” in her honor.
Eliana Melmed Playing Doctor

Not Just Pink

Eliana Melmed

I am a junior in high school. I’m involved in the mock trial team, the drama department, the creative writing program, and a music club. I’m also on two sports teams: water polo and swimming. I could have also chosen to participate in basketball, or cross country, or tennis, or volleyball, or soccer, or a dozen other sports. I definitely take for granted my opportunities to participate in the athletics and activities of my choice.

Bobbie Rosenfeld / Aly Raisman

Olympians

Going for the Gold 

Julie Heldman

Julie Heldman won 22 professional tennis titles in her stunning career.

Deena Kastor

Long distance runner Deena Kastor was an eight–time national champion in cross country and holds the American records in the marathon, half–marathon, 5K, 8K, and 15K races.

Dara Torres

An athlete of remarkable endurance and drive, twelve-time Olympic medalist Dara Torres is the only American swimmer to have competed in five Olympics.

Rusty Kanokogi

The first woman allowed to train with male judo students at Japan’s judo headquarters, the Kodokan, Rena “Rusty” Kanokogi pioneered women’s judo as an Olympic sport.

Sarah Hughes

In a thrilling, surprise victory, Sarah Hughes won the gold medal for figure skating at the 2002 Olympics, becoming the first American to win that honor without ever having won a World or US senior national title.

Aly Raisman

Alexandra “Aly” Raisman not only won gold and bronze medals for her individual performances at the 2012 Olympics but captained the women’s gymnastic team that won the gold medal that year.
Anya Davidovich and Evgeny Krasnopolski

Landing the Triple: Female, Israeli, and First

Paula Sinclair

Anya Davidovich, a sixteen-year old girl born in the USA, will be skating for Israel in the Winter Olympics. Her parents are Israeli, and most of her family lives in Israel. She is part of the first-ever pairs team to compete for Israel in the Olympics and the only female member of Team Israel. Anya will be carrying the flag for the Israeli delegation.

Paula Sinclair, JWA Director of Programs & Partnerships, interviewed Anya and her mother as they prepared for their trip to Sochi.

Topics: Athletes, Olympics

Rena Glickman featured by Sports Illustrated

November 24, 2008

“The father of men's judo was a small, quiet, disciplined athlete who lived in Japan a century ago. No big surprise there. The mother of women's judo?

Barbells

The Future Shomer Shabbos Weightlifting Olympian

Deborah Fineblum Raub

Last January, a 4-foot, 9-inch bundle of power named Naomi Kutin squatted and focused her considerable energies on the task at hand: hoisting a whopping 214.9 pounds (more than double her own 97 pounds). At the moment of that seemingly impossible lift, beating out her much older competitors, Naomi set a new powerlifting world record for women in her weight class.

Topics: Sports, Olympics

Kayla, Rusty, and the "best sport in the world"

Ellen K. Rothman

When I opened The Boston Globe on Friday morning, I was greeted by a large photo above the fold of a jubilant Kayla Harrison, who had just become the first US judo athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

Olympic Rings Formation

Dear Aly: I could nevah hava (nagila) 'nuff of you!

Gabrielle Orcha

Dear Aly,

Though you’re ten years my junior, you inspire me. At five feet two inches, you are strong—in body and spirit; you are open and kind; you are level-headed and take things as they come.

Topics: Music, Athletes, Olympics
Rusty Kanokogi

Grappling all the way to the Olympics

Gabrielle Orcha

For the first time in world history, this year every country competing in the Olympics has a female athlete on its team.

Laura Spector's Olympic debut

Leah Berkenwald

Two years ago we cheered on swimmer Dara Torres, fencer Sada Jacobson, marathoner Deena Kastor, and pole Vaulter Jillian Schwartz at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. This year, only one Jewish American woman is competing in the Vancouver Olympic games, and in one of the more interesting events. Laura Spector made her Olympic debut in Vancouver, competing in the women's biathlon, a combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. 

Topics: Athletes, Olympics

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now