ActivePaper Archive Olympics honor David Berger, Munich 11 — at last - The Cleveland Jewish News, 8/12/2016

CJN.ORG . Olympics honor David Berger, Munich 11 — at last

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Ilana Romano, center, and Ankie Spitzer, right, widows of members of the Israeli Olympic team killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics, attend a memorial in honor of their husbands and the rest of the Munich 11 before the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro Aug. 3. | AP Photo / Edgard Garrido

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David Mark Berger took up weightlifting at age 13 and “just loved it,” said his sister, Barbara Berger. | Photo / Barbara Berger

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Berger

Memorials to David Mark Berger

• The David Berger National Memorial at the Mandel JCC in Beachwood

• David Berger AZA #1823 is a chapter of BBYO’s Ohio Northern Region

• David Berger AZA #2059 is a BBYO chapter in Dallas

• The weight room, a mural and a scholarship for best student-athlete at Shaker Heights High School all have been named after David Berger

• David Berger-Avenger Field in New Orleans

• The David Mark Berger Chapter of American Friends of Magen David Adom, an organization devoted to saving lives in Israel

• The Munich 11 Memorial at JCC Rockland in West Nyack, N.Y.

• The David Berger Memorial Weightlifting Tournament is held annually in Rego Park in Queens, N.Y.

• David Berger was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Commack, N.Y., and the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame

• A street in Ashkelon, Israel, is named after David Berger

The Munich 11

david mark Berger, weightlifter Ze’ev Friedman, weightlifter Yossef gutfreund, wrestling referee eliezer halfin, wrestler Yossef romano, weightlifter amitzur shapira, track coach Kehat shorr, shooting coach mark slavin, wrestler andre spitzer, fencing coach Yakov springer, weightlifting judge moshe weinberg, wrestling coach

It took 44 years, but it fi nally happened. On Aug. 3, two days before the start of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the International Olympic Committee offi cially honored the Munich 11 for the fi rst time with a mourning ceremony.

David Mark Berger, who grew up in Shaker Heights, was part of the Munich 11, a group of 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and offi cials who were murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

Berger, 28, had made aliyah after competing in the 1969 Maccabiah Games, where he won a gold medal as a weightlifter in the middleweight class, and was a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. He was a weightlifter on the 1972 Israeli Olympic team.

It was the worst terrorist attack in Olympic history, yet the IOC had never taken any offi cial action to honor the memory of these slain Israelis during the summer Olympic games – until Aug. 3.

Barbara Berger, the younger sister of David Berger, said she was “absolutely pleased.”

“I heard they were going to do something many months ago, and I was fl oored because it’s been 44 years and the IOC had never previously considered doing anything,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Portland, Maine. “My father (Dr. Benjamin Berger) used to write to the IOC every four years, but they always just said, ‘No, no, no.’

“So I did think of my father (when the ceremony took place). He and my mother would have been thrilled.”

Dr. Berger, a longtime Shaker Heights resident, died in September 2014. His wife, Dorothy, died in 2010.

Barbara Berger said Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano – the widows of fencing coach Andre Spitzer and weightlifter Yossef Romano, two of the Munich 11 – have been relentless in their pursuit to have the Israeli victims offi commemorated. Spitzer and Romano attended the Aug. 3 ceremony.

“But I would add that my father, in his own way, was equally persistent,” she said. “He would have loved a moment of silence dedicated to the 11, and he asked, ‘What about just a moment of silence dedicated to peace?’ and (the IOC) wouldn’t even do that. They also said they don’t mix the Olympics with politics, and we all know that’s not true.”

Other ceremOnies scheduled

Barbara Berger said she believes the IOC’s change of heart may have something to do with Thomas Bach of Germany becoming IOC president in 2013, but she’s not sure. She said she has not been in touch with Bach.

On Aug. 3, Bach led a minute of silence during the inauguration of a “place of mourning” in the athletes’ village in Rio de Janeiro. He read the names of each of the 11 Israelis and the German policeman who was killed after a raid by Palestinian gunmen in the athletes’ village in Munich.

“This is closure for us,” Spitzer told The Associated Press.

A ceremony for the Munich 11, featuring Spitzer and Romano lighting 11 candles, is scheduled for Aug. 14 at Rio City Hall. Officials from the IOC and the Israeli Consulate will lead the commemoration, according to a JTA report.

A “moment of reflection” for the Munich 11 also will be held during the Olympic games’ closing ceremony Aug. 21. But there was no minute of silence – a long-standing request of families of the slain Israelis – during the opening ceremony.

“To me it doesn’t matter (that there was no minute of silence),” Barbara Berger said. “The fact that they are finally getting acknowledged is what’s important.”

Three of the top officials of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games organizing committee – including its president, Carlos Arthur Nuzman – are Jewish, according to a report in The Times of Israel.

BBYO chapter renamed FOr Berger

David Berger, a 1962 graduate of Shaker Heights High School, was a member of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood. His funeral service was Sept. 8, 1972, two days after his death, at Fairmount Temple with Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld officiating.

Later that year, the Joshua AZA chapter of BBYO’s Ohio Northern Region was renamed the David Berger AZA chapter. The chapter had been started only a few months before the Munich massacre, said David Eskenazi, its founding adviser.

“We were approached by the BBYO regional office and asked if we would be willing to take the name of David Berger because he was a local resident,” said Eskenazi, who remains the chapter’s adviser but has not held the position consecutively since 1972. “It was not a hard decision; everybody involved at that time felt it would be a great honor and something to carry his name on for the future.”

Eskenazi, of Shaker Heights, said after the chapter’s name was changed, he and its members got to know the Berger family extremely well, especially David’s parents.

“We would meet at the Berger home in Shaker Heights at least every six months,” he said. “Dr. Berger would talk about David and his legacy, and we got to see David’s room and his medals. It just instilled a sense of purpose in everyone in the chapter.”

Eskenazi said Dr. Berger and his wife fought for years to have the IOC recognize the tragic events of 1972 in some way at the Summer Olympics, but to no avail.

“It had fallen on deaf ears,” he said. “Therefore it’s good they are doing something, but it’s way too late. It should have been done at the Olympics of 1976.

“Whether or not there is going to be ongoing recognition, I’m not sure if that is appropriate. But those of us who carry on the name of David Berger appreciate that it’s finally happening. We’re proud to carry on his name and his ideals and the fact that he was a super human being.”

‘it was a verY sad mOment’

Lou Murad of University Heights was a close friend of David Berger’s while growing up in the same neighborhood in Shaker Heights. He said they walked to and from school together, and when Berger started weightlifting as a teenager, he introduced Murad to the sport and they did weight training together at various gyms.

“It was a very sad moment for me when it was announced on television that they were all killed,” Murad said. “This was my very good friend who I had spent a lot of time with.

“It was always a sticking point for me that the Olympics are such a huge event, and they never paid the respect that was due to the Israeli (athletes and coaches) who were killed there. I was very disappointed in the (IOC) for not recognizing it all these years.”

But now, Murad said, it’s rewarding to know that Berger and the others from the Munich 11 are finally being recognized at the Olympic Games.

“It does my heart good,” he said. “Now at least people will take note of this happening and who David was and his being an American as well. It was quite an accomplishment for him to get on the (Israeli) Olympic team.

“I’m sure if David had lived, he would have made something out of his life because he was a smart young man. At least now these men will be recognized for who they were and the sacrifices they made; it was the ultimate sacrifice.”

Berger was a National Merit Scholar Finalist at Shaker Heights High School. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, he earned two degrees from Columbia University in New York – a master’s in business administration and a doctorate of law. new memOrial underwaY in munich

The David Berger National Memorial is a sculpture that was created by the late Cleveland sculptor, David E. Davis, to honor Berger’s memory. Its original home was on the grounds of the old Mayfield Jewish Community Center in Cleveland Heights, and after that facility closed in 2005, it was restored at the McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory in Oberlin and then reinstalled outside the Mandel JCC in Beachwood in 2006.

Through the efforts of former Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, Congress authorized the memorial as a National Historic Landmark in 1980.

Barbara Berger noted a memorial site is being built in Munich to honor the 11 slain Israelis and will be called Munich Massacre Memorial ’72. Piritta Kleiner, curator of the project, said in an email the site will feature biographies of the Munich 11, a timeline of the terrorist attacks and other facts related to the massacre of Sept. 5-6, 1972.

Kleiner said construction began in late July on the memorial, designed by the German architectural firm, Bruckner & Bruckner.

“We expect to complete it in early summer 2017, but it is not decided yet when the opening will take place,” she said.

Barbara Berger said Kleiner traveled to her home to interview her for the project and that she’s very pleased it’s happening.

“It will be a beautiful outdoor memorial with information on the athletes,” she said. “They have put in a lot of time planning this.”