Maccabi GB

Who we are

Maccabi GB is Britain’s leading Anglo-Jewish Sports, Health and Wellbeing Charity and has flourished for nearly 80 years. Part of a global movement operating in over 70 countries, our mission is to support the long term future of British Jewry by engaging and developing the entire Jewish Community with a broad range of sporting, educational, social and health and wellbeing activities, whilst promoting Jewish Identity and the centrality of Israel.

As the only Jewish Charity operating in the recreational arena, Maccabi GB and its affiliated Community Centres, Sports Leagues and Associations and Affiliates are reaching more people today than at any time in our history. Recent published research shows that we make a real difference to Jewish lives and that as a result of being engaged with Maccabi GB and our affiliates people are more likely to stay within the Jewish community.

Each year, through over 250 targeted projects, programmes and events, Maccabi GB reaches nearly 50,000 people nationally. This is achieved by a dedicated team of professionals based in both London and the North. A member of the Jewish Leadership Council, we are a voluntary-lead, professionally managed Charity whose role and remit within the Community has grown significantly over the past decade.

The demise of the Jewish Youth Club sector over the past 20 years meant that Maccabi GB needed to find new access points to reach and engage young people and to fulfil our mission. This has successfully been achieved via the work we do with Jewish schools and today Maccabi GB and its Streetwise Project operate in every mainstream Jewish School in Britain delivering daily PE Curriculum lessons, inter-school Sports Tournaments, lunch time and after school clubs and a range of National Curriculum programmes on the subject of Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education. We also work within non-Jewish schools through their Jewish Societies as well as a number of successful interfaith, schools-linking projects.

In addition to the schools, Maccabi GB  continues to offer sports provision to all ages and  to all abilities. Maccabi GB operates a selection of Sports Clubs and Community Sports Days offering everything from Badminton to Table Tennis, Netball to Running and Lawn Bowls to Walking Groups. We deliver the annual Maccabi GB Community Fun Run which engages over 75 communal Charities and Schools and over 6,500 participants and spectators.  Over £1.8 million has been raised over the life of this event, now held at Allianz Park. It is the largest Communal fundraising event in the Jewish calendar and reaches across all generations who can walk or run 1, 5 or 10 kilometre routes.

We have a broad range of Health and Wellbeing programmes which we deliver both directly to the Community and via over 100 partnership organisations which includes working with residents of Jewish Care Residential and Day Centres and  clients of Chai Cancer Care.  The programmes are tailor made and delivered by our trained and qualified sports coaches.

We offer social inclusion programmes working alongside our partners in this field including Langdon, Norwood and Kisharon. The highlight of this is a biennial Elliott Simmons Maccabi GB Challenge Israel Tour for young people with learning difficulties and special needs. This programme alone costs in excess of £50,000.

Maccabi GB continues to deliver a range of international sporting events. We send a team annually to the JCC Maccabi Games in the USA and also larger Delegations to the European Maccabi Games (the latest one in Budapest in 2019) and the Pan-American Maccabi Games (the latest one in Mexico in 2019) every four years. In between, and also every four years, we send over 450 athletes to Israel for the Maccabiah Games. The Jewish Olympics now plays host to over 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries.

This is just an outline of some of the work we are currently delivering. All of our programmes require human resources to plan and deliver them in a professional manner ensuring good governance and strict financial management.  Over the past two decades we have slowly yet strategically evolved and developed our Organisation, its programming and the resources we need to successfully deliver this vital work to achieve our aims. We currently require in the region of £1,000,000 per year to fulfil  our mission to ensure the Community stays Actively Jewish for generations to come. Any donations are extremely appreciated.

JEWISH ETHOS

Maccabi GB is a Jewish organisation which seeks to advance the religion by engaging all sections of the Community in activities which combine the opportunity to participate in sport with informal education on the Jewish religion, history and culture and the opportunity to engage in the practice of the Jewish religion.