Tsvi Nishri and Maccabi Tel Aviv
Founded in 1906 as Rishon Lezion Yafo, the sports association changed its name to Maccabi Tel Aviv in 1910. Maccabi, the first Jewish sports association, was established in Istanbul in 1895 primarily as a gymnastics club and came to inspire other Jewish sporting groups in Europe and the Americas, such as Bar Kochba, Ha-gibor, and Ha-koaḥ, as well as the sporting activities of Betar and other Zionist youth movements.
In this image is the gymnastics teacher Tsvi (Zvi) Nishri. Born Tsvi Hirsh Orloff in the Yekaterinoslav region of the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), Tsvi Nishri studied in a heder and later had a secular education supplemented with Hebrew and Russian literature. Orloff left school at age thirteen to apprentice as a craftsman; during these years he also became a member of the local Ha-Po‘el ha-Tsa‘ir chapter and taught in a reformed heder. He served as a paramedic in the Russian army and following his release, immigrated to Palestine as part of the Second Aliyah. Now calling himself by a new Hebrew name, Nishri was offered a job as gymnastics teacher at the Herzliya Gymnasium, and after completing his degree in physical education at the University of Bern, he took up this position, which he held for the rest of his life. Nishri pioneered Hebrew gymnastics education in the Land of Israel: he taught gymnastics education at the Levinsky teachers’ college, led seminars on physical education for teachers, wrote Hebrew books on sports and exercise, and represented the Yishuv in international congresses on physical education and culture. Nishri was a founding member of the Israeli Maccabi association, the Hebrew scouting movement, and the Israeli Olympic Committee.
Credits
Photograph by Avraham Soskin. Soskin Collection, MUSA, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
You may also like
The Essence of Baseball Explained for Non-Sportsmen
This short primer on baseball appeared in the Yiddish-daily Forward, along with a diagram of a baseball diamond.
A Sponsored Review of Dos Pintele Yid
Hatikvah (The Hope)
This cover from 1910 was used for the sheet music for Hatikvah, which became Israel’s national anthem.
A Story of Rabbi Levi Yitsḥak of Berditshev
Yiddish Folk Songs with Their Original Airs
You may also like
The Essence of Baseball Explained for Non-Sportsmen
This short primer on baseball appeared in the Yiddish-daily Forward, along with a diagram of a baseball diamond.
A Sponsored Review of Dos Pintele Yid
Hatikvah (The Hope)
This cover from 1910 was used for the sheet music for Hatikvah, which became Israel’s national anthem.