BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — Temple Beth El of Boca Raton will dedicate part of its weekly Shabbat service tonight to the memory of the Jewish athletes slain in Munich 40 years ago.
In a strongly worded email transmitted to Temple membership this morning, Rabbi Jessica Brockman echos comments made in Jewish media worldwide, calling on the International Olympic Committee to pause the opening ceremonies to remember the victims of terrorism.
Here is the email:
A minute of silence has rarely been so loud.
If you subscribe online to any Jewish press, you have seen the non-stop appeal for a minute of silence during the Summer Olympic Opening Ceremonies to mark the 40th anniversary of the 11 slain Israeli athletes killed by terrorists during 1972's Munich Olympics.
As of this time, the IOC has still refused to have this happen during the Opening Ceremonies, a request that has been repeatedly denied at Olympics since the initial memorial service took place at the 1972 Olympics when, after a brief respite in response to the terrorism, they continued in spite of the terrible tragedy. The Israeli team that year left shortly after the service to fly home and console the loved ones of their lost teammates, their friends.
One of the things that so upset Golda Meir, Prime Minister at the time, was that these events took place on German soil, which only 3 decades earlier had been the most the dangerous place on earth to be a Jew, as the Holocaust would come to show us. In a post-Holocaust world, Israeli athletes should not have been targets and Jewish athletes should not have been endangered, as was Mark Spitz, the Jewish gold medal swimmer who was whisked away in the midst of the Munich Olympics after concern for his safety following this attack. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2058075/Mark-Spitz-iconic-picture-Munich-Olympics-taken-London.html
Shabbat is supposed to be a time of peace and tranquility. This Shabbat evening at Temple Beth El at our 7:30pm service, we will break that peace and tranquility with a prayer and minute of silence in remembrance of those slain in Munich 40 years ago. And in our own way, we will become part of the grassroots movement, started at a JCC in Rockland County, in conjunction with a widow of one of those murdered in Munich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDt5ObL0ABY to remember these athletes. And far above the earth, from those who will pray in London, and in Boca Raton, and in Jerusalem and around the world, their prayers will rise to the Heavens and remember these innocent victims who are so worthy of our silence.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jessica
