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March 14, 2003
Jews influence 2010 Olympics
Kosher Burger King and new mikvah are more important than highway.
SHLOMIE DEMUNNEY REPORTER
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Vancouver/Whistler
bid for the 2010 Olympics.
While the recent plebiscite showed that the majority of Vancouverites
support the idea of hosting the winter Olympics, for several months
now, there have been many different groups who have expressed their
own concerns or opinions on what they would hope to get out of the
international event.
However, the representatives of the group Jews With Olympic Concerns
(J-WOC) chose to wait to contribute their two cents until the representative
of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) paid a visit to Vancouver
earlier this month. At that time, they met with IOC evaluation chief
Gerhard Heiberg, as well as Jack Poole and John Furlong, the leaders
of the Vancouver/ Whistler bid, to offer their thoughts on how our
community would expect to influence the games.
The Bulletin was able to get a hold of the notes from the
meeting. Here are some of the new events the Jewish community representatives
requested.
1. Frozen bagel lifting instead of weightlifting.
2. Change the name of slalom skiing to shalom skiing.
3. New extreme sport – the most precise, quickest mohel.
4. New men's sport – synchronized shuckling.
5. New women's sport – synchronized guilt-tripping.
The community representatives also made a rather unusual request
for a mikvah to be built in the facility where the speed-skating
races would take place. Joel Cohen, who, along with Jonathan Schachter,
co-chairs J-WOC, explained that the mikvah will help all of the
female competitors feel better about themselves.
"After skating around the ice in those tight, rather revealing
outfits, I would think that all of the women skaters would need
to follow up their race with a dip in the mikvah," he said.
One of the other suggestions made by J-WOC included five new kosher
fast-food restaurants.
"I think kosher Burger King would have a lot of success in
Vancouver," said Schachter. "I bet the entire community
would show up for Whopper Wednesdays."
After concluding that the IOC theme song for 2010 should be "Hava
Nagilah," J-WOC leaders added that if the IOC supports the
Jewish community's requests, they will only need one drop of oil
in order to keep the Olympic torch lit for the entire two-week period.
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