About Us
What is Maccabi GB?
Maccabi GB is today one of the country's largest and most innovative Jewish Charities. We aim to deliver a broad range of Sporting, Educational and Social events for the whole of the Jewish community with the ethos of Jewish continuity and the centrality of Israel as our primary motivation and we currently run over 200 programmes a year.
We have been running our programme in this country for 70 years and as a charity this has been achieved only as a result of the support of a large group of dedicated volunteers and financial support from both the community and government funding.
We act as an umbrella organisation for over 30 different sports and support thousands of Jewish adults and young people, including those with special needs, who take advantage of our extensive programmes every year. This happens either directly through Maccabi GB events or via our network of National Clubs.
The Maccabi Challenge, allows young people with special needs the opportunity to take an active part in Maccabi events, some of which are specially planned for them including tours to Israel.
As well as our comprehensive sports programmes we offer an extensive range of informal education projects and social events for all age groups. We also organise a catalogue of international events and send groups and teams to Israel and many other countries each year.
We are only able to financially support these programmes and in certain cases individuals, by contributions that are made by the community and commercial sponsorship.
If you know of anyone who may be able to assist us in raising funds at any time please contact Martin Berliner at our office. It could be that you have a novel way of raising funds or would just like to make a donation or suggestion. We would be pleased to hear from you.
OUR HISTORY
Maccabi was founded at the turn of the century in Central and Eastern Europe. Following rising anti-semitism, Jews were excluded from local sports and social clubs. So they decided to form their own.
The clubs concentrated on developing their members' physical fitness, primarily for reasons of self-defence.
Maccabi now has over 400,000 members in 55 countries throughout the world. In the UK alone there are 12,000 members.
Early Maccabi clubs were based around sports but soon became social, cultural and sporting centres for the community. This continues today with many sports including badminton, basketball, bridge, cricket, football, golf, gymnastics, hockey, karate, lawn bowls, netball, rugby, softball, squash, swimming, table-tennis, tennis, tenpin bowling, track & field, triathlon, volleyball and water polo. There are also 25 youth clubs spread throughout the country, with many hundreds of young members regularly attending for social, educational and sporting events.
The clubs aim to teach members about being Jewish and to produce the next generation of Maccabi, and community, leaders. It isn't a rigid, textbook kind of education. Its informal, modern and very upbeat. It includes our government-approved leadership training schemes, our Israel tours and Programmes and the Maccabi Street Project.
Maccabi clubs have also become places for young culture: for music, arts and drama, including Le'an, Maccabi's own theatre company.
Registered Address: Shield House, Harmony Way, London NW4 2BZ
Charity Registration Number: 1098206
Company Number: 4759599
