Makkabi Helsinki is a Finnish Jewish sports club in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. It is the oldest

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

sports club in the world that has an uninterrupted history. It was founded in 1906 with the name “Stjärnan”' (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

for ‘the star’). The current name was adopted in 1936. In

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, the club played in the top-flight competition

Mestaruussarja Mestaruussarja (Championship series) was the top division of Finnish football from 1930 to 1989. It was replaced by Veikkausliiga in 1990. In 1930 league format was used for the first time to decide the Finnish champion. Before that from 1908 to ...

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will b ...

, after that on lower levels. These days the main sports are

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

and floorball. The club celebrated its

centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at ...

in November, 2006. The president of the club, Dennis Mattsoff, has mentioned

Elias Katz Elias Katz (June 22, 1901 – December 26, 1947) was a Finnish track and field athlete, who competed mainly in the 3000 metres steeplechase. Katz was born in Turku to a Jewish family. He frequented local nightclubs, participated in dance ma ...

as the most celebrated athlete to have represented this club. Katz won

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

in the 1924 Olympic Games in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

with

Paavo Nurmi Paavo Johannes Nurmi (; 13 June 1897 – 2 October 1973) was a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner. He was called the "Flying Finn" or the "Phantom Finn", as he dominated distance running in the 1920s. Nurmi set 22 official world ...

and

Ville Ritola Vilho "Ville" Eino Ritola (18 January 1896 – 24 April 1982) was a Finnish long-distance runner. Known as one of the "Flying Finns", he won five Olympic gold medals and three Olympic silver medals in the 1920s. He holds the record of winning ...

in the 3000m team race. He also won a silver medal in the 3000 meter steeple chase race. According to Mattsoff, the objective of the club is to strengthen the Jewish identity of the community in Helsinki, and to help the youngsters acquire also values other than those relating to competitive sports. The club had its worst setback in history at the

Helsinki Olympic Stadium The Helsinki Olympic Stadium ( fi, Helsingin Olympiastadion; sv, Helsingfors Olympiastadion), located in the Töölö district about from the centre of the Finnish capital Helsinki, is the largest stadium in the country, nowadays mainly used ...

on 21 June 1938, when its athlete Abraham Tokazier participated in a 100 metre race. He was officially declared to have come fourth, but on the basis of photographs and other pieces contemporary of evidence, it has been surmised that in reality he won the race. A possible reason for foul play on the part of the organisers was the fact that among the spectators there was a delegation from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

.Jouko Juonala: ''Oikeusmurha olympiastadionilla'' (‘

Miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Inno ...

at the Olympic Stadium’). Ilta-Sanomat Plussa 22 Dec 2006, p.18, 19)

Season to season

References

External links

* http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/jewish-ww.html#Finland * https://web.archive.org/web/20070928031726/http://www.maccabiworld.org/ntext.asp?psn=8009 * https://web.archive.org/web/20090312012054/http://www.jchelsinki.fi/yhdistykset/makkabi.htm Sports teams in Finland Jews and Judaism in Finland Sports clubs in Helsinki

{{Finland-sport-stub