Juniors Athlete Report

Debbie has had a long involvement with Maccabi stretching back many years and is thrilled to be the Regional Manager of the Junior Team. Her current roles in Maccabi include being the Member Protection Officer for Maccabi NSW and Maccabi Australia, responsible for the welfare of all Maccabi members and stakeholders. Last Maccabiah Debbie was an assistant Regional Manager of the Junior Team.

The Junior Team is fortunate to have two wonderful assistant managers in Erez Feinberg and Shayna Slotar. Both have experienced Maccabiah before and are still incredibly involved in Maccabi carnivals, on committees and their expertise is phenomenal. Erez is an 8th generation Jerushalmi, an accomplished Junior athlete, Israeli tour guide, Jewish Studies teacher at Mount Scopus College in Melbourne and comes to us with a wealth of knowledge of Israel like no other.

Shayna, a former Maccabiah athlete, is a talented netball player, founding president of Social Netball in Sydney, and an event planner extraordinaire

Our team have recruited some amazing coaches, but I want to highlight a couple at this stage who have come to us from very different backgrounds. Our youth football coach Jan Schmidt holds a UEFA B coaching licence and has played at Maccabi Frankfurt and Hakoah in Sydney. He is a well-respected coach and has recently been appointed as the Technical Director of Hakoah for the upcoming season.

Ben Grosman is Maccabi through and through. He currently coaches several Maccabi Basketball teams and Rep teams, having played at youth level as a captain and participated at the recent Pan Am Games in the Open Men’s team. He has continued his commitment to Maccabi and is the Marketing Officer at Maccabi Victoria. We welcome Ben as a coach of our junior boys’ basketball team.

Our managers keep persevering and adapting to all the challenges that Covid brings upon us. Trials are now scheduled for December and January. Let me highlight a couple though; the manager of our track and field team Bronwyn Elbourne has been amazing. Bronwyn has recruited the largest ever Junior Track team from all states and many of the nominees having achieved qualifying times, have been ratified to the Australian Maccabiah Team and are well on their way to Israel. Bronwyn herself is a Maccabi person having participated in teams from a young age , in carnivals and in management. Wow!

Belinda Wolpert from Western Australia is also one amazing manager and despite being in WA has energised the group of Youth Basketballers and continues to work tirelessly for Maccabi in WA. As Vice President of Maccabi WA and its Member Protection Officer, she is a dynamo and Maccabi and indeed Maccabiah are proud to have her on board.

Women’s sport continues to grow, and at these games we will have both a Youth and Junior Netball team in pursuit of gold medals.

We look forward to the months ahead during which trials and uniform try-ons will take place. We wish all out athletes a successful trial and look forward to catching up face to face.

Enjoy the journey – One Team One Dream!