Hezy Asher | Lecture Series on Sport, History, and Business for Private and Organisational Audiences

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Lectures for Organizations

ההרצאות שלי

Lecture Series

Sport Under the Swastika

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'Football Is Played for 90 Minutes, and in the End Nazi Germany Wins'

Few countries have invested football, and matches against Germany in particular, with as much meaning as Austria and the Netherlands. After the war, the Netherlands embraced the myth of an overwhelmingly resistant nation, even though hundreds of thousands of spectators had filled its football grounds during the occupation. Austria followed a different path. A victory over West Germany in a largely meaningless match at the 1978 World Cup became a symbol of Austrian independence and is still celebrated today.

The lecture explores sport’s contradictory roles. It could help normalise occupation and the exclusion of Jews, yet it could also help nations construct a distinct national identity by setting themselves apart from Germany. It explains why Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement led the England team to perform the Nazi salute before a friendly in Berlin in 1938, and why, fifty years later, the myth of Dutch resistance brought millions into the streets after victory over West Germany at Euro 1988.

'Three Jewish Women on the Podium and One Hitler in the Stands'

Everyone knows Jesse Owens, the Black sprinter who supposedly “defeated Hitler” at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Yet the familiar story is far removed from reality: the Games were a spectacular propaganda and diplomatic success for the Nazi regime, while Owens returned home to a racist and discriminatory United States.

The lecture turns the spotlight on the overlooked heroes of Berlin 1936 and the Second World War: Jewish and other European athletes who paid a heavy price for defying the Nazis. Their lives expose how historical myths are manufactured, how societies select the heroes they prefer to remember, and why remarkable figures can remain virtually unknown beyond their own countries.

'From Heroes to Traitors'

The National Sporting Heroes Who Crossed the Lines During the Second World War

Leading athletes often become national heroes. They represent their country, win the public’s admiration, and come to embody the qualities a nation likes to see in itself. But what happens when those same heroes collaborate with an occupying enemy?

This lecture follows celebrated athletes from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands who entered the Second World War as national heroes and emerged from it branded as Nazi collaborators. Some were tried after liberation. Others were almost completely erased from public memory. All of them presented an awkward problem for societies eager to remember themselves as victims or nations of resistance.

Their stories reveal how nations manage discreditable chapters in their past, how comforting national myths take shape, and why it is often easier to blame “a few bad apples” than to confront uncomfortable questions about society as a whole.

'The Muscular Judaism We Forgot to Remember'

The Muscular Judaism We Forgot to Remember

What connects Bayern Munich to the Holocaust? Why do Bayern supporters now display the portrait of a former Jewish club president, and why have most Israelis never heard his name?

When we picture European Jewry before the Holocaust, many of us imagine Jewish towns, synagogues, and rabbis. Yet there was another Jewish Europe as well, populated by football stars, Olympic champions, and world champions who belonged at the heart of European culture.

The lecture restores the Jewish athletes, coaches, and administrators who helped shape European sport to the historical record. It examines how their world was destroyed in the Holocaust, why so many of them vanished from public memory for decades, and how Germany, Austria, and Israel have chosen to remember, or forget, their Jewish sporting heroes.

''Muscles of Hope''

The Jewish Athletes Whose Talent Became a Spectacle in the Nazi Camps

The story of four Jewish sports heroes, most of them world-renowned champions, whom the SS turned into circus attractions in the Nazi camps—forced to entertain others while living under the constant threat of death.

This is a story about the power of sport, but also about its limits. Sport could not save them all, and certainly could not protect their families. Yet even in a place designed to strip them of their humanity, they never ceased to be human.

From Farm Fields to Playing Fields and the Pool

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'From the Tractor to the NBA'

How Kibbutz Sport Transformed Israel, and What Happened to It Along the Way

In the early decades of the state, kibbutzim did much more than farm the land. They built swimming pools when most Israeli cities had none, developed formidable volleyball, basketball, and water polo teams, and produced generations of national champions, international captains, war heroes, Paralympic champions, and even NBA players.

Then Israel changed. Television became dominant, big money entered sport, kibbutzim were privatised, and local competition became global. What did these upheavals do to kibbutz sport? And why have so many kibbutz teams disappeared while athletes raised on kibbutzim continue to reach the highest levels?

The story stretches from Avigdor Moskowitz, a teenager from Kibbutz Givat Brenner who became a star of Israel’s national basketball team, to Deni Avdija of Kibbutz Beit Zera, now thriving in the NBA. It is the story of kibbutz sport, but it is also the story of Israel itself.

Looking for a Fresh and Engaging Lecture on History, Sport, and Business?

Contact

Hezy Asher
052-639-0346

Hezy@sportshistory.co.il

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