The historic events that tell the story of the rise of Jewish athletics on the international stage, which will be put on display at a special museum set to open in the coming months at the Maccabiah Village Ramat Gan, will also be made into digital memorabilia in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) following a deal between the Maccabi World Union and Israeli company Sighteer.
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NFTs are the cryptographic assets on a blockchain that are not exchangeable because of their nature of being distinguished from each other.
The goal of the initiative, named "Project Max," is to create global awareness about and promote the "inspiring story of Jewish sport on social media and the metaverse."
Named after Max Nordau – the Hungarian Zionist leader who co-founded the World Zionist Congress – the project will "leverage Sighteer's artificial intelligence platform to share the story of Jewish sport with global audiences and engage younger generations around the shared values of sports," the company said on its website.
Project Max will offer a limited number of officially licensed NFTs created with the museum and Maccabi World Union. As organizers of the Maccabiah Games, the third-largest sporting event in the world, MWU's memorabilia is also a national treasure of the Jewish people and has already been on display across the globe. The items will be sold in limited series of 11 each – one in gold, three in silver, and the rest bronze.
Among the items on display: The trophy awarded to the winner of the 10,000-meter run at the first Maccabiah Games in 1932; a flier from 1930 advertising the first Maccabiah Games that would be held two years later; a copy of a letter written by Yosef Yekutieli – the founder of the Maccabiah Games, Israel Football Association, and the Israel Olympic Committee; a photograph of the opening ceremony from the first Maccabiah Games, which included a gymnastics show with some 2,500 performers.
"The goal of Project Max is to present the story of Jewish sport to Jewish audiences across the globe, fans of NFTs, the younger generations, and to build awareness and a presence on the Internet and in the metaverse regarding the diversity of Jewish sport," said Amir Gissin, executive vice president of the Maccabi World Union.
"Project Max will share the story of Jewish sport with Jewish global audiences around the common values of the Jewish world and Jewish sport in an unprecedented fashion," he added.
Eran Reshef, the founder and CEO of Sighteer, said: "There's nothing like sport to connect and build bridges between people. Through the company's artificial intelligence platform, we are bringing the story of the Maccabiah Games and Jewish sport to larger audiences than we ever imagined, and are creating a prosperous and modern Web 3.0 community around Jewish sport, which promoted equality and fights antisemitism all at once."
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