Nearly a year after her dominant performance at the 2012 London Games, Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman just landed in Israel! She will lead a parade of more than 8,000 athletes from around the world for the 19th Maccabiah Games. Raisman is well known for her gold-medal winning floor exercise routine at the 2012 London Olympics which she performed to the tune of "Hava Nagila". She dediciated her performance to the memories of the Israeli athletes killed exactly 40 years prior, at the 1972 Games in Munich.
Raisman will be honored during the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games, which will take place on July 18th at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem. “The Maccabiah is the most important Jewish and Zionist event in the world,” Maccabiah chairman Amir Peled told the Times of Israel in a recent interview. “There is no Jewish-Zionist event in the world that comes close to doing what the Maccabiah does — reaching everyone, those who belong to a synagogue and those who don’t attend at all.”
In other sports related news, Amar'e Stoudemire, star forward on the New York Knicks is back in Israel. Last, time Amar'e visited in 2010 he spent his time traveling around the country visiting various historical sites, working on his Hebrew and learning about his Jewish heritage. “I have been aware since my youth that I am a Hebrew through my mother, and that is something that has played a subtle but important role in my development,” Stoudemire told The Jerusalem Post at the time. This time around he decided to cement his ties to the Holy Land by becoming part owner of the Israeli professional basketball team Hapoel Jerusalem. Stoudemire, along with 3 other investors, is said to have purchased a 90% stake in the team for 20 million shekels ($5.6 million). “Today I’m one of the proud new owners of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball organization,” Stoudemire tweeted July 12. “It’s a great day!”