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August 6, 2024

The Great Jewish Fencers of Prewar Hungary

“The most Hungarian of martial arts.”

I have to confess that I’m not someone who pays a lot of attention to the Olympics, but, while catching up on other Middle East news, I happened upon a story about Yuval Freilich, the first male Israeli fencer to qualify for the games in the épée. A winner of the European championship, Freilich ended up losing to a lower-ranked opponent. (Those seeking to take pride in Jewish athletic prowess can look instead to the two Jewish fencers on the four-member, gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s fencing team.) But this put me in mind of the 1999 movie Sunshine, about a fictional Hungarian Jewish family named Sors. Its central character, played by Ralph Fiennes, is a fencing champion. The eminent historian Istvan Deak wrote in a fascinating review:

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