TEL AVIV — Every place in our world can tell of its history. Few have a history like the history they tell here. Part of the telling involves tradition passed down by and from the ancients.
In Hebrew, the word that broadly refers to this chain of tradition is “masoret.”
That tradition is so longstanding, so outstanding, that it would eventually form — we are talking the sixth to the 10th centuries in our common era — the authoritative central Hebrew and Aramaic Biblical texts as we know them today.
It may seem a long leap from way back then to today’s Israeli judo team. But, again, this is a land of history and tradition and, more, how those things can be brought to life in the here and now. And when you are part of that team, and you are speaking the Hebrew that uses the very same vowel markings that the people from those centuries developed, and each day in practice you are fashioning your own traditions, based on Olympic medals first won in 1992, and again in 2004, and then anew in 2016, that is literally what you are doing — making tradition live.
And what it will mean to be a part of a new tradition — the inaugural International Judo Federation Tel Aviv Grand Prix, which got underway here Thursday before a raucous crowd of thousands at the Shlomo Group Arena, a “celebration of sport in Israel … for unity, friendship and peace,” as IJF president Marius Vizer said from the lectern in his comments at Thursday’s opening ceremony.
Since that breakthrough in Barcelona in 1992, judo has arguably become Israel’s national Olympic sport. Israel has won, in all, nine Olympic medals, five are in judo. Two of those five came at the Rio 2016 Games, both bronze, Yarden Gerbi in the women’s under-63 class, Or Sasson in men’s plus-100.
Just a little glimpse of this tradition at work:
Israeli judo athletes Sagi Muki, Tal Flicker and Peter Paltchik were each born in 1992.
Muki is a 2015 and 2018 European champion and the No. 1 seed here this week at men’s under-81. Flicker, in men’s under-66, won three meets in 2017 and was bronze medalist at both the 2017 world championships and 2018 European tournament. Paltchik is world No. 3 at men’s under-100 and also this week’s No. 1 seed.
“Their parents sent them to judo because judo was famous,” and judo was famous because of 1992, said Oren Smadja, who along with Yael Arad won Israel’s first-ever Olympic medals at those Barcelona Olympics — in judo. He won bronze, she silver. She was 25. He was 22. It was 20 years after 11 Israelis had been kidnapped and murdered at the Games in Munich.
“My father,” Smadja said, “he brought judo to Israel. Ponte,” meaning Moshe Ponte, who is now head of the Israeli judo federation, “is a student of my father. Ponte was my coach. Now I am the coach,” of Muki, Flicker, Paltchik and Sasson, among others.
“I have a lot of memory. I have a lot of experience. Altogether it makes the judo.”
But this, too:
Now the Israeli team is just that — a team. It’s not relying on one or even two athletes to break through. In all, there will be 43 Israeli judoka competing this week.
“It’s exciting,” Timna Nelson Levy, a 2016 European bronze medalist in the women’s under-57 category, said at Wednesday’s pre-meet news conference.
“It shows how much depth we have, women and men together. You see it. It’s exciting.”
In winning her bronze in Rio, Gerbi became the first Israeli Olympic medalist in eight years. Windsurfer Shahar Tzuberi took bronze in Beijing in 2008.
“So many!” Gerbi said, meaning referring to the Israeli delegation of 43: 24 men, 19 women. “I am very proud of my team. Very proud of this system. Very proud we are in this position.”
For comparison, the Israeli team is two times or more the size of every other delegation here. Some others: Russia, Italy, 21, Holland, 20; Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan,18; France, 17; U.S., 15.
It’s often the case that the home team seeks to maximize the number of judo players it sends to a home tournament. Post-Rio, for instance, Japan has staged three Grand Slams (one in Osaka, two Tokyo); each time it sent 56 judoka.
Including the world championships last summer in Azerbaijan and the World Masters in the fall in China, the IJF counted 17 major 2018 events. At only seven of those 17 did the home team sent more than 43 athletes, and that list of seven includes major judo powers such as Japan and France and geopolitical heavyweights such as Germany and Russia.
The Dutch also sent 43 to their inaugural Grand Prix in The Hague in 2017 (and 43 to last year’s return event). Compare: the Netherlands has 23 Olympic medals in judo, four gold.
“A lot of children call me,” Smadja said. “The parents — they want to come to the national team to take a picure with Muki and Peter, and every day there are a lot of children waiting for the to get an autograph and a picture. They are big stars now in Israel.”
“After the last Olympics, after Sasson and Gerbi’s medals, it became even more possible,” Paltchik said. “Every second kid today is doing judo. All of the eyes of the crowd are on judo. It makes it a very popular sport and everyone is watching. It’s nice.”
But this, too:
At men’s under-66, in Flicker and Baruch Shmailov, silver medalist at the 2018 World Masters and seeded No. 1 for the Tel Aviv Grand Prix, the Israelis have two legitimate Olympic medal prospects. At women’s under-52, same: Gili Cohen, a 2016 Olympian, and 18-year-old Gefen Primo, a 2018 European bronze medalist.
The idea here this week, Ponte said, is to start testing that depth so that Israel can compete across the board for medals at the Olympics in 2024 in Paris.
It proved a rough go Thursday for both the top Israeli guys in an under-66 category that hardlly went to form. Flicker, who famously won gold in 2017 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, went out in his very first fight in a match that lasted seven minutes. Russia’s Islam Khametov, the world’s No. 61-ranked fighter, would go on to win bronze. Shmailov lost in the final round of the prelims to Ukraine’s Bogdan Iadov, world No. 40; Iadov got silver, losing in the finals to Italy’s Manuel Lombardo, No. 37.
In Thursday’s women’s draws:
Cohen, after defeating Primo to get to the finals, lost quickly to Rio 2016 gold medalist Majlinda Kelmendi of Kosovo. Kelmendi brought it to an end in just 36 seconds.
In the day’s last final, Nelson Levy outpointed Russia’s Daria Mezhetskaia for gold.
At the first, women’s under-48, Israel’s Shira Rishony won gold, defeating Ukraine’s Maryna Cherniak. It was Rishony’s second IJF Grand Prix gold; she won in Tashkent in 2013. Rishony and Cherniak had matched up in 2016 at the Rio Games; there, Rishony was disqualified for a technical rules violaiton.
So, the Israeli medal count: three medals, two gold, atop — at least for starters — the medals table.
On hand to present Rishony’s medal: the Israeli International Olympic Committee member, Alex Gilady. The crowd, including sport and culture minister Miri Regev, joined with Rishony to joyfully sing out the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, which means “the hope.”
Regev gave Nelson Levy her medal, and a big hug. Again came Hatikva, and many, many cheers.
“In every category, we have good athletes,” Smadja said. “We have a good chance to do something in the Olympics. It’s good for us and it’s good for judo.”
It all goes back, of course, to masoret.
“Even if it’s hard in the beginning or you’re not successful,” Ponte said, “if you have a way, if you believe it, and you believe in your way, you have success.”
Now comes the story that goes with the way, and it’s the telling of the story, always and in all ways, that matters:
In 1984, coached by Morris Smadja, Ponte competed in the judo tournament at the Los Angeles Summer Games. Ponte tied for 20th, after losing to Michel Nowak of France, who would go on to win a bronze in what was then the under 78-kilo category. A side note: the silver medalist was Great Britain’s Neil Adams, who is now arguably judo’s preeminent broadcast voice worldwide.
By 1992, Ponte had become Oren Smadja’s coach. And all these many years later, Ponte had his way, and he believed in it, fully.
“Oren Smadja, I said to him, ‘I will be with you.’ I went with my truth and my belief and my experience, also. What we had to do to get a medal — it was an amazing medal.
“Now, four years before Rio, I became the [Israeli judo federation] president. For 12 years we did not get a medal. In Rio, we took almost three medals: two medals and a fifth [place] and a seventh,” and the way this particular piece of the story goes is that it was Muki who was fifth, then at under-73. He came up short in a fight for bronze with Lasha Shavdatuashvili, the London 2012 under-66 gold medalist who four years later was up a class.
“This,” Ponte said, “is the way that makes tradition.
“Tradition makes medals. Tradition makes children believe in themselves and to know that they are going to train for the Olympic Games.
“Nothing else.”