My Lectures
'From Heroes to Traitors'
The National Sporting Heroes Who Crossed the Lines During the Second World War
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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.
'Three Jewish Women on the Podium and One Hitler in the Stands'
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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.
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'Muscles of Hope'
The Jewish Athletes Whose Talent Became a Spectacle in the Nazi Camps
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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.
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'On the Cutting Floor of History'
A lecture that invites a fresh look at how stories become etched in our collective memory
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For almost every historical event or famous figure, there is one dominant image that becomes etched in our memory: the paratroopers at the Western Wall, Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue, or the moment the second plane struck the South Tower on 9/11.
But who decides what is forgotten and what we remember? Why does the world remember Neil Armstrong, while Michael Collins - the astronaut who steered the Apollo 11 command module in orbit - remains a footnote in public memory?
You are invited to a thought-provoking lecture drawing on my knowledge and experience as both a photographer and a doctoral researcher in history.
'When Politics Masquerades as Celebration'
FIFA’s Rise to Power: The Organisation Behind the World’s Biggest Sporting Event
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“I can speak to any president, and they speak to a president as well, as an equal,” outgoing FIFA president João Havelange said in 1998.
How did a football federation become one of the most powerful organisations on the planet? How did FIFA grow into a global juggernaut that keeps accumulating money, power, and influence, giving it extraordinary leverage over governments, corporations, and political leaders?
By tracing the World Cup’s rise from a football tournament to a global political and commercial powerhouse, this lecture exposes how decisions are really made on the international stage. It shows how money and vested interests shape events, and how political and technological change has remade the world since the 1960s. This is not really a story about football. It is a story about power.
'In the Mountains of Nepal, on the Plains of Peru, and in Mateh Asher'
Volleyball as the Ultimate Team Sport
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How did volleyball become a symbol of entire communities, from remote mountain regions around the world to the heart of the Israeli kibbutz?
The lecture takes the audience on a cultural journey, beginning with children in the mountains of Nepal and Peru before travelling to the golden age of kibbutz sport in the Galilee. Along the way, it uses volleyball to explore national identity and the transformation of Israeli society since the 1970s. Above all, it asks why, in an era dominated by huge budgets and commercial interests, a game in which every attack depends on one player setting up another still captures the value of partnership and community.
'Football Is Played for 90 Minutes, and in the End Nazi Germany Wins'
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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.
'From the Playing Field to the Boardroom'
What Marketers Can Learn from Cities and Countries That Transformed Their Image Through Sporting Events
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What do Germany, South Korea, Barcelona, LEGO, and Apple have in common? Each managed to change how the world saw it, and that shift helped make later success possible.
Blending history, sport, and marketing, the lecture shows how the Olympic Games in Seoul and Barcelona, and the 2006 World Cup in Germany, were used to overturn entrenched perceptions and recast the identity of cities and nations. It then asks what organisations can learn from them.
It explores how changing the way a country or organisation sees itself, as well as the way others see it, can produce a new and persuasive public narrative.
The success stories are set against cases in which powerful brands squandered public trust. They demonstrate how the gap between a brand’s promises and the reality it delivers can eventually bring the entire story crashing down.
'From the Tractor to the NBA'
How Kibbutz Sport Transformed Israel, and What Happened to It Along the Way
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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.
'When the German Goalkeeper Was Hated More Than Hitler'
When Football Was Played for 90 Minutes and Germany Won in the End
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For 24 years, West Germany was the most formidable national team in the world. It won five major tournaments and finished runner-up in four more. It was also the most hated team in football. Was the German side ruthless and determined to win at any cost, or simply better trained and more professional than its rivals? What changed in the twenty-first century? The lecture follows Germany and its national team from 1972 onwards, using football as a mirror of German society.
'From Turk at Montreal 1976 to Anan Khalaili at Paris 2024'
Fifty Years of Change in Israeli Society Through Football
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A lecture on the integration of minorities into Israeli society, as reflected through football.
Israel’s squad for the 1970 World Cup did not include a single minority player. Six years later, Rifaat “Jimmy” Turk marched proudly in the opening ceremony of the Montreal Olympics as the first Arab footballer to represent Israel. Arab, Druze, and Circassian players are now firmly established in Israeli football, as Israel’s team at the Paris 2024 Olympics demonstrated.
How did this transformation happen? The stories of Rifaat Turk, Salim Toama, Bibras Natkho, Anan Khalaili, Hapoel Tayibe, and Bnei Sakhnin trace one of the most significant changes in Israeli sport. They also raise wider questions. How do athletes become social and political symbols? What can the football pitch reveal about relations between Jews and minority communities?
The lecture covers achievements and missed opportunities, racism and coexistence, bitter rivalries and remarkable friendships, from Jimmy Turk and Avi Cohen to Zahi Armeli and Avi Ran. Above all, it examines Israeli society through the place where millions of Israelis come together every week: the football ground.
'The Muscular Judaism We Forgot to Remember'
The Jewish Sporting World Destroyed in Europe, and What We Chose to Remember Instead
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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.
'Stasi Agents, Nudity by the Pool, and the Water Match'
The Story of the 1974 World Cup
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In 1974, East Germany qualified for the World Cup for the first and only time. The host was West Germany, a country that had never formally recognised it. How could the East German regime put supporters in the stands without giving them the chance to defect to the West?
The tournament had everything: a leading coach who suffered a breakdown, a “hippie” team that broke curfew in the middle of the night, a decisive match played in absurd conditions, and the birth of a remarkable rivalry.
'Two Things Are Sacred in the Netherlands: The Queen and Johan Cruyff'
The Football Rivalry Between the Netherlands and Germany
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“All those who had fallen rose joyfully from their graves,” a Dutch poet wrote after the Netherlands defeated Germany 2–1 in 1988. How did victory over Germany bring 60 per cent of the Dutch population into the streets for a spontaneous celebration? Why did Bayern Munich apparently consider it perfectly natural to humiliate both Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff in friendly matches? This lecture explores the roots of Europe’s most famous international football rivalry, football’s role in bringing Dutch hostility towards Germans to the surface, and the reasons why matches between the two national teams are far less charged today.
'What Discrimination? What Shoelaces?'
The Rivalry Between Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem
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Yariv Levin is a die-hard Hapoel Tel Aviv supporter. The blue-eyed Ashkenazi Reuven Rivlin served as chairman and manager of Beitar Jerusalem. Ashkenazi and Mizrahi players have represented both clubs, and Eli Tabib was driven out of both. So how did the myth become established that Beitar Jerusalem represents Israel’s marginalised “second Israel,” while Hapoel Tel Aviv represents the Ashkenazi elite? And what price did Beit She’an pay when it was caught in the middle?
'The Beginning of the World Cup as We Know It'
The Story of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico
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Every child knows to avoid the midday sun. FIFA had other priorities. To put the matches on European television in the evening, it scheduled kick-off at noon in the searing Mexican heat. The 1970 World Cup was the first broadcast live in colour by satellite, the first to use yellow and red cards, and the first to allow substitutions. It also marked the moment when the demands of television and money decisively overtook sporting considerations.
Looking for a Fresh and Engaging Lecture on History, Sport, and Business?
Contact
Hezy Asher
052-639-0346
