Israel Wins Her First Gold in Olympics

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----August 26.....Israel has won her first Olympic gold medal. Against all odds, Israel's national anthem Hatikva was played and an Israeli flag rose above the Olympic stadium in Athens. Against all odds because Israel's best, strongest, bravest and young are usually winning gold for Israel's security, for her very survival in the Israel Defense Forces. When asked to chose between an elite unit in the Paratroopers, Givati, Golani or the combat engineers and training for the Olympics, the answer is simple. How can one train for "games" when our homes and cities have been under attack for 52 years. When Islamic terrorists continue to blow up our buses, restaurants and shopping malls.

Another factor is money and culture. Israel is a poor country. One does an abundance of organized sports in most high schools. I have yet to see one running track at any public high school or University in Israel. Israelis love to watch soccer and basketball and sometimes miracles occur such as the recent win of the European Basketball Championships. But for the Olympics we are used to witnessing the United States, Great Britain and the states of the former Soviet Union rack up the medals. So when it was announced yesterday with breaking TV and radio bulletins that 29-year-old Gal Fridman had won Olympic gold for Windsurfing, it took this tiny nation by total surprise.

With a half moon rising behind him, and an orange sun plunging beneath the Saronic Gulf before him, Gal Fridman stood where no Israeli man or woman had ever set foot. He was on top of an Olympic platform, on top of the world, when the anthem started playing and the people started crying and the 32-year-old memory of 11 murdered athletes and coaches finally climbed up a Summer Games flagpole for everyone to see.
It was 8:04 p.m. in the small amphitheater when the public address announcer read these historic words: "Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem of Israel." On cue, two young Athenians dressed in white, Panayiotis Mitrou and Kostas Leontaritis, sent up Israel's flag to the sounds of Hatikvah, the Hebrew word for hope.

After 52 years and 12 Olympics, windsurfer Gal Fridman fulfilled a dream for himself and Israel.

Fridman, 29, raced a tactically flawless final race in the men's Mistral windsailing event to finish the race in second place and propel him past Brazil's Ricardo Santos and Nikolaos Kaklamanakis of Greece for the gold.

Later in the evening, Fridman received his gold, along with an olive branch wreath and a kiss from Alex Gilady, the Israeli member of the International Olympic Committee. Then, a mostly Israeli crowd rose to sing Hatikva and watch the Israeli flag get hoisted to the top of the flagpole for the first time in the 108 years of the modern Olympic Games.

Fridman had already made Israeli Olympic history on Monday when, as a result of his placement in the previous 10 races, he was the only competitor guaranteed at least a medal in the competition, making him the first Israeli to win two Olympic medals. Fridman took a bronze at the Atlanta Games in 1996. Kaklamanakis, who finished with silver this year, won the gold in Atlanta.

"It was like I was in a dream, completely cut off from everything else and totally focused," Fridman told Channel 1 of the last of 11 races in the event. The Israeli was the only one of the 34 sailors to finish in the top 10 of every race.

After crossing the finish line in second place and realizing that the distance between him and Santos, who had been in the lead coming into the final race, was too great for the Brazilian to overcome, Fridman thrust his arms into the air in celebration before taking a victory dip in the Aegean with his brother, Yuval, coach Gur Steinberg, and Israel's female Mistral surfer, Lee Korzits.

"I did it for the people of Israel... they were behind me and I'm glad I could do this for them," he told the cameras while sitting on his board and taking it all in.
Fridman used every bit of his experience to dump the young Santos in his quest for the gold.

Santos had a three-point lead over Fridman coming into the race, which meant that the Israeli needed to finish at least four places ahead of him in order to surpass him in the final rankings.

In the opening minutes of the race, the two surged ahead and were neck and neck with the front pack of sailors. Realizing that Santos's goal was simply to stick with him and avoid letting him build a four-spot advantage, Fridman dropped back in the race, as did Santos. Then, the Israeli waited for a change in the wind and bolted past the stunned Brazilian, leaving him in the middle of the pack.

While Fridman made his way to the front near Britain's Nick Dempsey, Santos decided to try to stay with Kaklamanakis in an attempt to at least go home with the silver. However, the wily Greek foiled his plan, breaking ahead in the last leg of the race, at which point Santos self-destructed and ended up finishing 17th, matching his poorest performance of the competition prior to Wednesday.

On the front end of the race, Dempsey managed to hold the lead until the end and wound up surpassing the Brazilian for the bronze.

Fridman tallied 42 negative points from 10 races (the worst result for each sailor is dropped), 10 less than Kaklamanakis. Dempsey wound up with 53 points thanks to his fine race on Wednesday, while the disappointed Santos acquired 54.

Korzits finished her final race in 12th and ended the women's competition in 13th place overall.

"We're very proud to do this for Israel," Leontaritis would say. "Every country should be treated the same."

Yes, the same. What the Israelis would give to be treated the same. What they would give for Iranian athletes to compete against theirs, fair and square, rather than forfeit as a means of declaring Israel a counterfeit state.

What the Israelis would give to negotiate their compound without the top-secret agents, the extra fencing, the heavier legacy of blood spilled and dreams stolen in the night.

"When you come to the Olympics," said Zvi Varshaviak, president of Israel's Olympic Committee, "you remember the 11 that the terrorists killed (in Munich). Now they want to kill us, and we show that we are here, and we have the gold medal."

It was 4:30 in the morning on Sept. 5, 1972, when five Arab terrorists wearing track sweat suits climbed the six-foot six-inch fence surrounding the Olympic Village. Although they were seen by several people, no one thought anything was unusual since athletes routinely hopped the fence; moreover, the terrorists' weapons were hidden in athletic bags. These five were met by three more men who are presumed to have obtained credentials to enter the village.

Just before 5, the Arabs knocked on the door of Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg. When Weinberg opened the door he realized something was wrong and shouted a warning to his comrades. He and weightlifter Joseph Romano attempted to block the door while other Israelis escaped, but they were killed by the terrorists. The Arabs then succeeded in rounding up nine Israelis to hold as hostages.

At 9:30, the terrorists announced that they were Palestinians and demanded that Israel release 200 Arab prisoners and that the terrorists be given safe passage out of Germany.

After hours of tense negotiations, the Palestinians, who it was later learned belonged to a PLO faction called Black September, agreed to a plan whereby they were to be taken by helicopter to the NATO air base at Firstenfeldbruck where they would be given an airplane to fly them and their hostages to Cairo. The Israelis were then taken by bus to the helicopters and flown to the airfield. In the course of the transfer, the Germans discovered that there were eight terrorists instead of the five they expected and realized that they had not assigned enough marksmen to carry out the plan to kill the terrorists at the airport.

After the helicopters landed at the air base around 10:30 p.m., the German sharpshooters attempted to kill the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued. At 11, the media was mistakenly informed that the hostages had been saved and the news was announced to a relieved Israeli public. Almost an hour later, however, new fighting broke out and one of the helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a terrorist grenade. The remaining hostages in the second helicopter were shot to death by one of the surviving terrorists.

At 3 a.m., a drawn and teary-eyed Jim McKay, who had been reporting the drama throughout the day as part of ABC's Olympic coverage, announced: "They're all gone."

Five of the terrorists were killed along with one policeman, and three were captured. A little over a month later, on Oct. 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by terrorists demanding that the Munich killers be released.

The Germans capitulated and the terrorists were let go, but an Israeli assassination squad was assigned to track them down along with those responsible for planning the massacre. According to George Jonas in Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, eight of the 11 men targeted for death were killed. Of the remaining three, one died of natural causes and the other two were assassinated, but it is not known for sure if they were killed by Israeli agents.

Meanwhile, the mastermind of the massacre remains at large. In fact, in 1999, Abu Daoud admitted his role in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist. He claims his commandos never intended to harm the athletes and blamed their deaths on the German police and the stubbornness of then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (JTA, May 4, 1999).

The massacre of 11 Israeli athletes was not considered sufficiently serious to merit canceling or postponing the Olympics. "Incredibly, they're going on with it," Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time. "It's almost like having a dance at Dachau."

Israel's elite athletes make a yearly pilgrimage to the memorial in Tel Aviv honoring the victims. There is another memorial to them in Munich. Fridman said he plans to take the medal to the Tel Aviv memorial, to mix his moment of victory with the memories of those murdered.

Fridman, after jumping into the water to take a victory swim and emerging to say that he won the race for Israelis who died before he was born, countrymen taken by hooded and masked Palestinian terrorists who would fly them out of the Games and into their graves.

"I hope that they are happy up there," Fridman said. "When I return to Israel, I'll go to the memorial place to show them the gold medal."

Fridman didn't weep on the highest Olympic stand. He was too busy smiling, scanning the crowd, and singing the anthem while wearing his nation's blue and white flag as a cape, the Star of David resting against his back.

Hundreds of Israeli witnesses weren't nearly as composed. Men and women waving their flags sobbed as they sang along with Fridman. The venue operators played the anthem at a faster pace than it was meant to be heard, leaving the Israelis struggling to keep up. A simple rookie mistake: Olympic officials had never before played this song.

The anthem ended at 8:06, and the party began. Horns blared in the stands. Delirious fans chanted, "Hey, hey, Is-ra-el." Greek fans had come to celebrate their silver medalist and caldron lighter, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis, but they were outdone by the Israelis bent on turning the ceremony into a bar mitzvah.

The fans couldn't remain in the stands with their cameras. No, they rushed the podium and joined Fridman on gold-medal ground. Somehow, some way, half of Tel Aviv danced with the champion on a platform meant to hold one stationary adult.

Security officials were powerless against this flood of fans. Their manic attempts to gain control around Fridman spoke to the sense of permanent crisis engulfing the Israelis, as did the ultra-thorough bag checks performed at the venue's gates. Uniformed Greek soldiers even marched in to form a protective wall between Fridman and the reporters armed with notebooks and microphones trying to interview him.

Ultimately, fear would strike out.

"An amazing event," said Yossi Shabi, a flag-waving Israeli fan. "This is a time for all of Israel to come together. With so much war going on, this is a time to celebrate history."

And a time to honor the past.

"This is a great way to make a tribute to the Munich victims," said Baruch Ingberg, a 48-year-old Tel Aviv resident. "But I don't believe Olympic officials will ever mention it in opening ceremonies. It's not fair, but they won't do enough for the victims' memories. This is the world. You have to be Israeli to understand."

Fridman understood. The Israeli team had made a pre-Games pilgrimage to the Tel Aviv monument to those slain in Munich. For too long, Olympic officials have tried to wish away their worst hour, refusing even to admit that the choice to resume the '72 Games was a horrible mistake.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, a member of the Belgian sailing team at the Munich Games, spoke at a memorial service here last week, finally showing the respect for the victims his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, never showed.

"I don't get into politics," Fridman said. "I don't understand that stuff. ... The only thing I can want is, I would love to bring peace to Israel. The fight (should) stop in the water.

"If you fight someone, fight him in sport to prove you are better, not in different ways. This is our job as athletes, to show the other side of the Israeli people. We want peace. All of my friends I know want peace."

Fridman talked of a Turkish friend he called "my Muslim brother," a friend who in turn called Fridman "my Jewish brother." The windsurfer whose first name means "wave" in Hebrew couldn't understand the decision by Iran's world judo champ, Arash Miresmaeili, to refuse to compete against Israel's Ehud Vaks. Fridman couldn't understand how Iranian president Mohammad Khatami could say Miresmaeili's forfeit should go down "in the history of Iranian glories."

"Only (Miresmaeili) is losing," Fridman said.

Israel was winning yesterday, its streets overflowing with first-place spoils. Israeli president Moshe Katsav and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon called Fridman about the mass hysteria he had inspired back home.

"(Sharon) said the whole country stopped for two hours at noon when the racing starts," Fridman said. "Everyone was watching everywhere — in the cafes, the restaurants, stores and houses. Everyone was just watching TV and waiting for the gold."

Fridman almost wasn't around to give it to them. A bronze medalist at the '96 Atlanta Games, he quit the sport for two years after failing to qualify for the 2000 Sydney Games.

He made a comeback just in time to give his 56-year-old nation its greatest sports achievement in a country known for its pro-Palestinian bent. As the Israeli delegation entered Olympic Stadium here during opening ceremonies, a cold hush swept over the crowd.

But Wednesday night, there was nothing cold or hushed about a ceremony on the shores of the Saronic Gulf.

"It's a gold medal for all the people of Israel," Fridman said. "We think about the people who were trying to do their best in sport and were murdered, and we hope that this will never happen again."

Prior to Fridman, there was an American-Israeli hero called Tal Brody who became Israel's first modern-day sports hero. A University of Illinois All America in 1965, Brody joined the Maccabi-Tel Aviv team after leading his United States team to a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabiah Games.

In 1967, the New Jersey-born basketball star was named Israel's Sportsman of the Year after leading the Maccabi-Tel Aviv team to a second place finish in the European Cup Basketball Championships. In 1969, he took Israel to its first Maccabiah Games basketball gold medal. In 1970, Brody officially "made Aliyah" - became a citizen of Israel.

In what was then the State of Israel's greatest international sporting achievement, Brody led his 1977 Maccabi team to the European Cup Championship. In Israel's quest for the title, competition on the court occasionally needed to surmount political intrigue. At the height of the Cold War and a Soviet boycott of Israel, the Middle East champions were matched against ZSKA Moscow (the Red Army team), champions of the Soviet Union and winners of the four previous European Cups. The Soviets refused to play their semifinal match versus Maccabi in Tel Aviv and would not allow the Israelis to come to Moscow. Virton, Belgium, was selected as a neutral site, but the location did not help the Bolsheviks. Brody's Maccabi team triumphed 91-79.

The championship contest against Italy's Mobil Girgi was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, also a communist country at the time. The El Al plane that delivered Maccabi-Tel Aviv to the event was the first Israeli plane permitted to land in the country. "The little team that could" won the tournament of 23 national champion teams by defeating Italy's best 78-77, to capture the European title.

During his playing career, Brody's Maccabi-Tel Aviv teams won 10 Israeli championships and 6 Israeli State Cups.

At the University of Illinois, the 6'11/2" guard won All Academic honors in 1965. That year, he was the thirteenth pick overall and number 2 selection of the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA draft, but opted to return to Illinois for his masters degree. That summer, he was selected to the U.S. Maccabiah team and traveled to Israel for the first time. One year later, he accepted an offer by Maccabi-Tel Aviv to play with the Israeli team.

In 1968, Brody was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served primarily on the All-Army and All-Armed Forces basketball teams. His U.S. Armed Forces team finished third in the World Championships in Belgrade.

In 1979, Brody was awarded the Israel Prize, the country's highest civilian honor. It appears that Gal Fridman will hold the Israel Prize of 2004. And we cannot forget one other hero, Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut. Again, defense called above sports and transcended into a medal for valor in space. Ramon gave his life for his finest victory, for one of Israel's finest moments.

On January 16, 2003 as the eyes of most Israelis were glued to TV sets, with a thunderous and colorful roar, the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying Israel's first astronaut.
Israel Air Force fighter pilot Col. Ilan Ramon set off for Earth orbit at 5:39 p.m. Israel time. Ramon had been assigned as a Payload Specialist for this mission.

Ramon had been selected by the IDF, the Israel Space Agency and NASA back in 1997 for this mission. The STS-107 flight mission was delayed a few times for technical problems, but on a beautiful, sun drenched day with combat aircraft circling the Space Center to ensure security, it was a perfect liftoff.
Ilan's wife, Rona, and their four children watched from NASA's Launch Control Center, about five kilometers from the launch pad. Ramon had invited 300 family members and VIPs to watch this historic launch from another site nearby.

"That was so moving, so touching," Ambassador Danny Ayalon said. "I was thinking the skies were colored blue and white our national colors. We had deep, beautiful blue skies and with this smoke [from the rocket boosters] coming out, it was very, very moving."

Once Columbia was safely settled in orbit, Mission Control radioed up "a big welcome to Ilan as you join the international community of human spaceflight."

Earlier in the morning, Ramon and his six crewmates rode to the pad under heavy police escort. A space center worker waved an Israeli flag as the "astrovan" passed in front of the launch control center. Despite the presence of a large SWAT team, the entire shuttle crew looked relaxed. Ramon waved and gave a thumbs-up.

For the next two weeks, the crew will perform science around-the-clock. Technically, Ramon is considered an add-on passenger. But unlike most payload specialists, he will be participating in all of the experiments, because of the mission's heavy workload.

"When we were assigned to the flight, I started looking at the payloads, and it became obvious Ilan would have to be fully integrated with the crew," payload commander Mike Anderson explained. "Usually a payload specialist specializes in one payload, but we couldn't have that luxury on this flight. So Ilan is fully trained in all the payloads. He's going to everything that the other astronauts on the flight are doing."

The time line for a shuttle mission is dependent on when it launches, and nobody can tell ahead of time whether or not there will be launch delays. On long shuttle flights, each crew member gets two half days off. Ramon's time off will be Wednesday, January 22 and and Tuesday, January 28.

The period after launch was extremely busy. First Ramon, Anderson, and Laurel Clark reconfigured the crew cabin. They folded and stored the chairs the crew used for launch and landing, and stored the bright orange launch and entry suits. Then two hours were spent activating the Spacehab module, in which most of the experiments will be performed.

Colonel Ramon describes himself as a secular Jew but said he would try to observe the Sabbath while in space if it did not interfere with his duties. That raised the question of when the day of observance, normally from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, occurred in earth orbit, since the shuttle circles the planet every 90 minutes. The astronaut consulted a group of rabbis, who developed a consensus that the day should be observed on the basis of times at his launching point, Cape Canaveral.

For Ramon's first meal in space he's selected kosher chicken and noodles, green beans with mushrooms, crackers, strawberries, trail mix, a brownie, and orange juice. Most food in space is similar to camping food precooked, freeze-dried servings. The astronaut injects several ounces of cold or hot water, waits a couple of minutes, then cuts the package open with scissors. Ramon's kosher chicken products are off-the-shelf. All he has to do is heat them in the oven and cut open the package. Most of the snack foods are standard.

Ramon started his first science for the mission, a breathing experiment in which he pedaled a bicycle while breathing in and out of a tube. His breath was collected for scientists to analyze after the mission. Next Ramon set up the equipment which will be used for blood collections throughout the flight, and spit out a sample of saliva, which was placed into a 28-liter freezer. By the end of the mission, the freezer will be filled with saliva, blood, and urine samples from the crew.

Finally, after an extremely long day Ramon got to prepare for sleep. The astronauts who went to sleep after launch were awakened, and Ramon's shift briefed them on what it had accomplished and any problems encountered. Ramon was scheduled to climb into his sleeping bunk at 4:39 a.m. on Friday, Israel time, and get up at 12:39 p.m. for his second day in space.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke to Ramon. "I am very proud of the first Israeli astronaut. Congratulations to you and the whole crew,"Sharon said. "I wish you well and that you enjoy yourself and all return safely."

President Moshe Katsav sent a microfiche of the Bible the size of a credit card to Ramon to carry on his journey, Beit Hanassi said Tuesday.

Ramon is a soft-spoken man conscious of the importance of symbols and history, and the role he plays in both.
"I have something else that is very meaningful,"Ramon replied, "something symbolic and exciting that I'll show you from space." "It's a great privilege to represent the State of Israel,"Ramon added. "It's a great honor for me."

Ramon said earlier that he would take Jewish symbols or ritual objects with him that correspond to the timing of his particular mission.

"I'm going to carry special things and try to express something about the unity of the Israeli people and the Jewish community. I have some ideas,"Ramon said, "but for the time being, I will keep them deep inside of me. It will be a surprise."

One of the items Ramon is carrying into space is a pencil drawing entitled "Moon Landscape." Created by a 14-year-old boy named Peter Ginz, it shows how Earth might look if you were on the Moon and looking back at our home world. What makes the drawing so important to Ramon is that it was created while Ginz was in a Nazi concentration camp, before the boy died in 1944.

Ramon, 48, is the son of Holocaust survivors.

"I know my flight is very symbolic for the people of Israel, especially the survivors, the Holocaust survivors,"said Ramon. "Because I was born in Israel, many people will see this as a dream that is come true."

The Israel Defense Forces congratulated Colonel Ilan Ramon on a successful space launch.
A statement from the IDF Spokesperson's Office read: The Israel Defense Force's commanders and soldiers congratulate Colonel Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut on his successful launch into space as a team member of the Colombia Space Shuttle. Col. Ilan Ramon's historic flight serves as a special occasion of great significance that highlights the warm friendship of the United States and Israel. The Colombia Space Shuttle mission is an illustration of yet another facet of the international cooperation in complex research expanding human knowledge.

Ilan, the IDF congratulates you and wishes you "a safe return home".

Col. Ramon sent the following e-mail message 24 hours before the tragedy from the Columbia to Israeli Air Force Commander Dan Halutz:
"It is a great privilege for me to be in the air force family for more than 30 years now and I am honored to represent all of you here in space, opening a new vision and way - air and space are one continuity and here we are - Space!"

While Ramon is the first Israeli astronaut, there have been six previous astronauts from Jewish households Judy Resnik, Jeff Hoffman, Ellen Baker, Jay Apt, David Wolf, and Scott Horowitz. All have doctorates; Baker and Wolf are physicians. Horowitz was the first Jew to command a space mission. Israel is the 29th country to have one of its citizens in space.

On February 5 the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in the skies over Texas killing all seven crew members, including Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, just 16 minutes before its scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The remains of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon were found among the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia and were brought to Israel for burial.

NASA officials informed representatives of the Israeli army that the body of Ramon had been identified, the army said in a statement. The remains were brought to Israel for a state funeral.

"This is a relief to all of us, especially the family," said Brig. Gen. Rani Falk, an Israeli air force attache in Washington. "NASA informed us officially that Ilan Ramon, may his name be blessed, was identified, and we can bring him for burial in Israel in the coming days."

Ramon's body was one of four sets of remains that have been positively identified, Israel Radio reported. The DNA and jaw bone of Ramon's body were checked to ensure that they were indeed his, the radio said.

Israel had sent four ultra-Orthodox specialists to aide NASA in searching for the remains of the astronauts, which were scattered near the Texas-Louisiana state line. According to Jewish law, all parts of a Jewish person must be buried. If the body is not found, a funeral is not possible.

Human remains were found Tuesday, and a resident of Vernon Parish, La., found fabric bearing a blue Star of David on a silver background, according to the local sheriff. Israeli newspapers reported Wednesday that the cloth was from an Israeli air force flag that Ramon had taken with him.

Weiss spoke in an interview shortly after NASA officials confirmed that Ramon's remains had been recovered among wreckage of the Columbia in the southwestern US.

The rabbi also confirmed that the remains were indeed those of the Israeli astronaut. He said Ramon would be brought for a full military burial in Israel, but that a date has not yet been set due to the findings of additional remains some of which may also belong to Ramon.

Weiss said that while he didn't want to use the word joy, "I certainly want to express tremendous satisfaction that Ilan Ramon is to brought to burial."

Looking at the Israeli air force flag found along with Ramon's remains, Weiss said,"fill me with such a deep Jewish and Israeli message.
For me it is as though Ilan Ramon lives on as a representative of the Jewish people."

Although he wasn't a religious Jew, the fact that he brought a Torah scroll into space and ate Kosher food on the shuttle, "sent a tremendous message to all of us, particularly in these times," when Israelis are so fragmented between the Orthodox and the secular, Weiss said.

As far as Halacha is concerned, Ramon can be buried as long as the smallest remains are found, but the family may want to wait to see if more are recovered, Weiss added. He said the US authorities also had some technical details to take care of before releasing the remains.

Col. Ilan Ramon is survived by his wife, Rona, their four children - Assaf (14), Tal (12), Yiftah (9) and Noa (5) - as well as his parents, Eliezer and Tova Wolferman, brother and sister.

Back in Athens, Israelis sang and cried and danced. Thirty-two years too late, a proper Olympic tribute was paid to their dead. And for most Israelis, a moment to embrace, as Fridman and his Olympic gold brought back memories of other past Israeli victories such as the unification of Jerusalem in 1967 and the Entebbe rescue operation in 1976.

Israel, a nation of too few heroes and too few smiles, cherishing a rare moment of happiness in it's daily quest to survive. Quickly we turn our attention back to disengagement from Gaza, new elections, a replacement for Arafat, Palestinian suicide bombings and a depressed economy. We need more Olympic Fridman's. We need more joy. We need more heroes among us beyond those who serve in the IDF and Israel's security organizations.

We should only witness more medals of sport and less bombs of terror in Israel's long and continuing marathon run for regional peace and prosperity. And finally, Israel should bring the Olympic Games to Jerusalem.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY

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