Winter 2026

On August 25, 2004, Hatikvah echoed across Athens’ Olympic Stadium as Gal Fridman stepped onto the podium to receive Israel’s first-ever Olympic gold medal. Air horns blared, spectators wept and Israel came to a standstill.

The emotion of that moment reached beyond Fridman’s triumph, carrying the memory of the Munich Games 32 years earlier, marked not by victory but by grief and horror following the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes.

Since Israel first competed in the Olympic Games in 1952, its athletes have earned 20 Olympic medals and an additional 394 medals in the Paralympic Games. These victories reflect not only the grit and resilience shared by elite athletes worldwide, but also a distinctly Israeli determination to excel on the world stage while refusing to yield to hostility or exclusion.

Israeli athletes have competed despite opponents who refused to face them, such as a Saudi judoka in 2016, despite efforts to marginalize them, including a Lebanese team blocking their bus, and despite calls from political leaders to bar Israel, as Spain’s prime minister urged before the 2026 Games. Furthermore, they endured all this while training without the generous scholarships and state support available elsewhere.

Join us for a celebration of national pride with Israel’s top athletes, who will share what it takes to compete for a small country on the world’s biggest stage and keep Israel’s Olympic and sporting spirit burning bright on the road to Los Angeles 2028.

With:

Yael Arad, Israel’s first Olympic medalist, silver in women’s judo at the 1992 Barcelona Games, and President of the Olympic Committee of Israel

Moran Samuel, Paralympic gold in Paris 2024 and silver in Tokyo 2020 in para-rowing

Jared “The Jewish Jet” Firestone, Gold medal, Olympic-discipline skeleton event

Anastasia Gorbenko, silver medalist in the 400m individual medley at the 2024 World Championships and two-time Olympian

Moderated by Yuval Shemla, national champion climber and Israel’s Ninja Warrior winner.