Beatie Deutsch is the kind of would-be Olympic athlete that movies are made about. Deutsch ran her first marathon less than five years ago, at the age of 26, after the birth of her fourth child. She ran her second marathon while seven months pregnant with her fifth. She did not participate in track and field in high school or college and only began training with a coach a little over a year ago. And now, Deutsch is an elite runner, steps away from qualifying for the Olympics.
But here’s the problem: She’s not just Jewish, but Israeli, and so she faces an uphill climb.
For only the second time since its inception in 1984, the women’s marathon race is on a Saturday. That’s a problem for Deutsch: She’s a Sabbath-observant Jew and cannot compete. Initially, the race was scheduled for a Sunday, but because of the readjustments made due to the impact of COVID-19, it was moved to a Saturday, and Deutsch’s pleas to instead schedule the race to the following day for religious reasons are falling on deaf ears.
Deutsch’s attorney isn’t standing down, and in a letter to the International Olympic Committee, the lawyer explains:
The IOC’s claim that it doesn’t make alternative arrangements for religious practices is absurd on its face. In 2012, the London Olympics rearranged races to accommodate Muslim athletes observing Ramadan. The Olympics’s willingness to make adjustments for Muslim athletes was applauded at the time: “One spokeswoman for the London Games stated that some alterations can be made. They will schedule long-distance races at the evening or some other events in the early morning that those athletes who want to fast during that time can have something to eat or drink directly before or after the event.”
These weren’t just alterations to make sure that these athletes could compete at all, but alterations for the sake of making their religious observance easier while also competing. Now, the IOC is telling an athlete that it will never make a change for religious reasons, ever. Thanks to 2012, we know that’s not exactly true — it just won’t make adjustments for a Jew.
This news comes a few weeks after the IOC landed in hot water for celebrating the 1936 Berlin Olympics and eventually took down its video about it. JPost reported, “The International Olympic Committee apologized for including a video of the first Olympic torch relay at the 1936 Berlin Olympics along with the words ‘stronger together’ in a series of short videos celebrating the ‘message of unity and solidarity’ of the Olympics. But the apology did not note the substance of the objection to the inclusion of the video.”
The IOC cared to send the message of unity and solidarity, except as it pertains to Jews. The IOC’s history with Jew-hatred is almost too long to recite: most recently, it spans from the refusal of the 2012 games to honor the Israeli lives lost 40 years prior at the Munich games to this summer’s celebration of the “unity” of the 1936 games.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, Deutsch said, “I’ve worked so hard for the opportunity to compete in the Olympics and to represent Orthodox Jewish women and mother runners on the international stage. All I’m asking for is a little flexibility so religious athletes can be welcomed at the Olympics like everyone else.”
Therein lies the problem: In a rational world, the IOC would be more than happy to accommodate an athlete with as compelling a story as Deutsch has. But when her Jewishness is factored in, the IOC’s response is simply “our hands are tied.”
Correction: The race in question scheduled for a Saturday is the Olympic final, not a qualifying race as this article previously stated.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and homeschooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
