Jüdischer Sport

Jewish Sports Activities: Due to increasing anti-Semitism in sports and gymnastics clubs from the 1880´s onward (Jewish members of were excluded because of the so-called "Aryan paragraph") and also due to growing Jewish national consciousness, Jews began to form their own athletic associations. This applied to Jews in favour of assimilation as well as to those involved in the Zionist movement. Such organisations included the Deutsch-österreichischer Turnverein (German-Austrian Athletic Club), established in 1887, the Turnverein jüdischer Hochschüler (Jewish Students´ Athletic Club, 1899), and the Sektion Donauland des Deutschen und österreichischen Alpenvereins (Danube Section of the German and Austrian Alpine Association, 1921). In 1903 the "Jüdische Turnerschaft" athletic association, which included six Austrian clubs, was founded in Basel; in 1921 this gave rise to the "Weltverband Makkabi, Verband jüdischer Turn- und Sportvereine", a world-wide association of Jewish athletic and sports clubs (called in Austria the "Jüdischer Turn- und Sportverband Österreichs", the Jewish Athletic and Sports Association of Austria). In 1909 the sports association Hakoah was founded in Vienna. After Germany´s annexation of Austria in 1938, Jewish sports associations were either forbidden or forced to consolidate as the "Makkabi-Wien" (Vienna Maccabees). In 1941 these also were forced to disband. Sports activities were taken up again after the Second World War when Hakoah was re-established in 1945. The Vienna Maccabee Games were held again in 1946.

Literature: J. Bunzl (ed.), Hoppauf Hakoah, 1987.