Berlin, August 3, 2015 – Some 2300 Jewish athletes from 36 countries are gathered in the German capital city from July 27, and until August 5, for a ten-day competitions in 19 sports.

These sports games are held in Germany for the first time since their creation, 70 years after the end of World War II, and have been named “a triumph of good over evil.”

The opening ceremony took place inside the “Olympiastadion Berlin”; the same stadium hosted the Olympics in 1936, during which the German Jews were forbidden to participate.

Besides the sporty character, the event aims to strengthen ties between Germany and the Jews of the world and affirm the revival of the Jewish community in German society.

The Maccabi movement  (named after the Maccabees,the Jewish family who led the resistance against the forced Hellenization policy pursued by the Seleucids in the second century B.C)  was created at the end of the 19th century by Jewish athletes, facing exclusion of many sports clubs.

Organized by the Maccabi World Union, they take place in the Americas, Oceania and Europe. The first European Maccabi Games were held in Prague in 1929.