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“The great thing about representing Israel is you learn to take a mindset that is one of a victor, not a victim.”
By United with Israel Staff
The captain of Israel’s first-ever Olympic bobsled team says the wave of vandalism, theft, and antisemitic abuse his team has faced in Europe has only reinforced a defining principle of representing Israel: thinking like victors, not victims.
Adam Edelman, speaking to Fox News Digital, described how the team’s hotel room in Prague was burglarized and vandalized just days before the competition.
Edelman was in Venice, Italy, when he learned what had happened through a stream of confused messages from teammates who were already at the hotel.
“They were sending messages that I didn’t understand,” Edelman recalled. “They were like, ‘The place is turned over, someone showered and stole our stuff.’ I honestly thought it was a joke at first. It didn’t make sense.”
The incident, he said, was deeply violating, but not paralyzing. “It was just another Tuesday for us,” Edelman said, explaining that the team quickly decided to push forward rather than dwell on the attack.
“You feel very violated in your space, but I told the guys, this is who we are. Whether it was targeted or not – and I think it was targeted – we’re moving on.”
Edelman framed the response as part of a broader Israeli mindset. “There’s a lot that goes into representing Israel,” he said. “But the great thing about representing Israel is you learn to take a mindset that is one of a victor, not a victim. If you truly view yourself as being on a good mission, then those moments don’t mean so much.”
The burglary was not an isolated incident. Edelman said the team has repeatedly encountered hostility and open antisemitism during its journey across Europe.
In Germany, he said, the team was turned away from lodging on Christmas Eve after staff realized they were Jewish.
He also recounted how another athlete competing in the same Olympic Games told him he would never join the Israeli team because Israel is made up of “baby killers.”
At another point, Edelman said, a swastika was drawn on the team’s vehicle.
Despite the hostility, the team leaned into pride rather than retreat. They jokingly nicknamed themselves “Shul Runnings,” a Hebrew-flavored nod to the 1993 film Cool Runnings about the first Jamaican bobsled team to reach the Olympics. For Edelman, the humor was part of the resilience.
“One thing I tell my boys is that in a couple of weeks, no one is going to remember our names,” he said. “No one really knows our names now. But they’re going to remember that the Israeli bobsled team made it, and that’s going to have ripple effects far beyond our personal lives.”
Edelman said the goal was never simply to qualify. “The goal was never qualification,” he said. “The goal is to compete at the Olympic Games.”
As the competition approaches, Edelman says he is preparing to close a personal chapter. “I’m retiring. This is my final Games,” he said. “Everything we’ve done will end for us in two weeks. But the team will live on, and what it accomplished will live on.”
For Edelman, that legacy matters more than medals. In the face of vandalism, slurs, and threats, the Israeli flag on the sled remains the point.
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