The Doctrine of Beitar

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...It is certainly English, but please read in the book of the honorable Colonel Patterson, who were the usual winners in all the boxing competitions in the English army: the Jewish "Yids." The Eskimos boast that they are better at playing soccer than the English and at basketball - than the Americans, and who knows, maybe they are right. The Basques have a national game called "Pelota," but its great artists are Germans. In short: national sports have a tendency to become international.

Even in nature's games, that is, those that depend on place and climate, the same rule applies. In my youth, I thought it was necessary to be Swiss or Tyrolean to be a mountain climber; but I soon learned that some of the best climbers of the Alps live precisely on the plains of Holland; just as Asper Ludolf of Sicily is capable of being among the world's best skiers, even though in his youth this sport was a national sport of the Scandinavian peoples.

It is impossible to fence in, there is no boundary and no exception — sport is something that becomes international... That is: there is no exception, save for one.

We Jews still have a national sport, so national that no other nation in the world will learn it from us. And if only we ourselves would not forget it and not push it aside, for then we shall have no competitors.

B. The National Sport, which I recommend economically to the Jewish youth, its name is

T H E W A L K O F T H E T O R A H

Without a doubt, this is the most noble sport in the world. Firstly: its goal is noble, as no other national sport can point to a similar one. Skiing and boxing and soccer and pelota are, in the end, nothing but games and amusement. One develops your muscles, another gains you self-respect, or at most for your team, and that is all. The national Jewish sport prepares to open a gate, before which stand millions of hungry souls; it helps to acquire a homeland for a homeless multitude.