INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

STRATEGIC CONSIDERATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT
OF AN OLYMPIC SPORT - BEACH VOLLEYBALL,
IN ISRAEL
Sport in Israel
Ms Nurit WERCHOW (ISR)
"The Sport in Israel is ill and the cure to its illness lies in the hands
of the minister of Finance. It is ill because of the indifference of
the governments, the parliament and the local authorities that do
not treat sport as a social and cultural subject ". (Ofek, 2000)
The earliest sport clubs in Israel were founded in the first decade
of the 20th century. Under the British Mandate, organized sport was
established; leagues, competitions and international representative
teams were formed. Over time, sport federations with political
affiliations developed. The first was Maccabi, founded in 1912 and
although it has been considered an apolitical organization for most of
its existence, it has been affiliated with the Liberal political center.
Second was the Ha-Poel, founded in 1926, which split from Maccabi,
represented the workers' party and belonged to the labour union. Third
was the Betar sports organization, founded as a youth movement in
1923 in Eastern Europe and affiliated with the nationalist Revisionist
movement. The fourth and last one was Elizur, founded in 1939 and
affiliated with the nationalist religious movement. These sport
federations established clubs in different fields for the purpose of both
popular and competitive sport. They did not specialize in a particular
sport but rather offered a wide range of sporting opportunities for
youth, adults, men and women (Nevo, 2000). In 1951 the first national
sport institutions of Israel were established, the National Olympic
Committee (NOC) and the sport association. At that time, Maccabi
and Ha-Poel signed an agreement of cooperation. According to this
agreement, all sports bodies in the state would be run on a parity basis,
each side represented by 50 percent of the members. That agreement
held till the early 1960s when the sports federations decided to adopt a
- 597 -