Jewish sports - both in the general German associations until 1933 and in Jewish associations
with various political leanings - played a vital role in the public life of Leipzig's Jews. The
history of these sports associations - primarily of the Zionist Bar Kochba Leipzig as the
biggest and most important of these - is also an integral element in the history of the Jewish
community and of Leipzig in general. Bar Kochba Leipzig raised the self-confidence of Leipzig's
Jews at a time when they were disparaged degraded and disenfranchised. At its sports ground in
Leipzig-Eutritzsch Bar Kochba together with other Jewish organisations prepared Jewish young
people for emigration and self-rescue. Those members of the association who managed to escape
continued to contribute to public life later in the State of Israel and in the diaspora. This
book also tells their stories.
