A curious story from Hungary recently caught my attention. Bence Szabó, a two-time Olympic fencing champion, said that after a long career in international sport, he joined the Sports Diplomacy Department of Hungary’s foreign ministry to serve as the country’s ambassador to Cuba. The appointment never happened, and the foreign ministry has not confirmed all the details of his account.
The interesting part is what Hungary apparently saw in Szabó. A lifetime in sports had given him international networks, access, experience and recognition that could be converted into diplomatic capital. There was never any question whom he would represent. He would represent Hungary.
For the Jewish world, that clarity does not exist.
Israeli athletes can and do represent Israel. But millions of Jews live elsewhere, compete for other countries and belong to Jewish institutions whose relationship with Israel may be important without making them representatives of the Israeli state.
The moment we speak of “Jewish diplomacy,” therefore, a familiar question arises: Where does Jewish solidarity end and dual loyalty begin?
The premise of that question needs to be challenged immediately. A Jew does not acquire a second political allegiance simply by caring about other Jews or about Israel. Transnational Jewish belonging is not dual loyalty, just as belonging to a transnational religious, cultural or ethnic community does not cancel citizenship or national allegiance.
Since Oct. 7, however, the distinction has become harder to maintain in practice. Jews across the world have found themselves asked to explain, defend or condemn the actions of a government they did not elect and a state of which many are not citizens. Connection to Israel is too easily interpreted as political representation, and Jewish solidarity as evidence of political allegiance.
That is precisely why the Jewish world may need more diplomacy, not less.
I do not mean diplomacy on behalf of an imagined Jewish government, nor an alternative foreign ministry or a network designed to defend every decision made in Jerusalem. Jewish diplomacy should mean something different: Jewish institutions should build and maintain relationships with the societies in which Jews live and with one another across borders.
Sports may be one of the best places to begin.
The Jewish world already possesses a remarkable sporting infrastructure. Maccabi World Union reaches hundreds of thousands of people in more than 70 countries through clubs, community centers, regional competitions and the Maccabiah Games. Beyond Maccabi, Jewish athletes, coaches, referees and sports executives participate in national federations, Olympic committees, professional clubs and international sporting bodies.
For more than a century, these networks have connected Jews with one another. They can also connect Jewish communities with the societies around them. But representation matters.
Imagine a Maccabi athlete in Europe who, after a competition, is asked whether Israel should be allowed to participate in international sports while the war in Gaza continues. The Maccabi badge identifies her with a Jewish organization closely connected to Israel. She may personally care deeply about Israel, but she does not represent its government.
Jewish diplomacy requires knowing who is speaking and for whom.
A Spanish Jew can be loyal to Spain and deeply connected to Jews in Israel. A German Jew can compete for Germany while belonging to Maccabi. A British Jewish athlete can care about Israel without representing Israel.
Jewish diplomacy, therefore, requires knowing who is speaking and for whom. A Maccabi representative can speak for Maccabi. Someone participating in an initiative of a local Jewish community can represent that community. An Israeli athlete formally sent abroad on Israel’s behalf represents Israel. None automatically speaks for the others.
Why call this diplomacy rather than simply goodwill? Because goodwill describes an effect. Diplomacy describes an organized relationship pursued for a purpose.
Two athletes becoming friends is not sports diplomacy. But when a Jewish organization deliberately uses sports to create sustained relationships with other institutions and communities, to communicate who it is, build access and maintain channels across social or political boundaries, something more organized is taking place.
There is nothing new about this. Modern Jewish sports organizations were never concerned only with winning competitions. From Max Nordau’s call for “muscular Judaism” to the emergence of Maccabi and the first Maccabiah Games in 1932, sports also provided a means of expressing Jewish identity, confidence and collective agency.
Hungary itself was part of that history. VAC, the Jewish Fencing and Athletic Club, was established in Budapest in 1906. Its athletes participated in Hungarian sporting life until antisemitic persecution made that impossible. Many of its members were murdered during the Holocaust. The club was later reestablished.
The challenge today is different. Jews no longer need sports to demonstrate that they can fence, swim, run or win Olympic medals. Jewish communities increasingly need durable relationships with the societies in which they live.
Too often, Jewish public activity begins only after something has gone wrong. An antisemitic incident occurs, and Jewish organizations respond. A controversy involving Israel erupts, and Jewish leaders are asked for a reaction. A Jewish institution is threatened, and community representatives seek allies.
Sports can create relationships before they are needed.
That does not mean turning athletes into spokespeople or handing them talking points about Israel. Jewish institutions should begin with something much simpler: map the relationships they already have.
Which members of a Jewish community hold positions in sports federations, coach teams, run clubs or compete internationally? Which Maccabi members have built meaningful relationships outside the Jewish community? Who already knows the people running national federations, Olympic committees and local clubs?
A coach who has worked with a club for 10 years does not have to introduce himself when a problem arises. A community whose young people regularly compete with their neighbors is not meeting those neighbors for the first time after an antisemitic incident. An official who has spent years inside a national federation already knows whom to approach and how that institution works.
There is a danger here. If Jewish organizations draw on these networks primarily when Israel faces criticism, they may reinforce exactly the assumption they seek to resist—that Jewish institutions abroad are extensions of the Israeli state.
That risk cannot simply be dismissed as prejudice. Jewish institutions themselves must maintain clear boundaries. Jewish identity is not Israeli citizenship. Connection to Israel is not representation of its government. Jewish solidarity is not dual loyalty. And a Jewish athlete should always be free to say the most important sentence in diplomacy: I do not represent them.
That brings us back to Szabó. Hungary understood that relationships built through sports can become diplomatic assets. The Jewish world should recognize the same potential without pretending to possess a single government, foreign policy or political voice.
After Oct. 7, perhaps the question is no longer whether the Jewish world needs diplomacy, but what kind of diplomacy it needs.
Jewish diplomacy does not need an embassy. It needs institutions willing to identify, cultivate and use the relationships Jews have already built. Sports offers one of the largest existing networks on which to build.
