Racing with dragons

The Dragon Boat Israel Festival brings together 33 teams from Israel and abroad at Kibbutz Ma’agan on the Kinneret to raise money for the North.

By PAMELA PELED
Dragon boat race Kinneret 370 (photo credit: Debra Silver)
Dragon boat race Kinneret 370
(photo credit: Debra Silver)
Although it is safe to assume no ancient Chinese holy man ever actually saw a dragon loping down a mountain path, this mythological creature was widely venerated and feared over 20 centuries ago. Associated with the waters of the world, dragons were believed to rule oceans, lakes and rivers, and even the rain and mist; sacrificial ceremonies in their honor were meant to placate and please them. Ever since ancient Greeks were sporting in Olympia nearly three millennia ago, their counterparts in Asia were racing dragon boats at annual water rituals.
Paddling for first prize was not a sport for the faint-hearted. Competing crew members would typically clobber each other with bamboo stalks and stones, and those who fell overboard would be left to drown in accordance with the dragon deity’s demands. Contemporary paddlers do not expect to be bashed on the head by opposing teams, and, luckily for the Canadians whose boat capsized last Friday on the Kinneret, the rules about sacrificial deaths have changed. But the sport is attracting ever more devotees; dragon boat racing is growing in popularity. Seventy- one countries in the West now host annual competitions, Israel being the latest to join in the fun.
“This festival is all about being one big family,” says Victor Yagoda, director of the Dragon Boat Israel Festival. “A happy family, with smiles on every face.”
But smiling faces aside, winning a dragon boat race entails some sweaty work. Twenty paddlers face forward for the race, and a drummer provides a “pulsating heartbeat” as they pull together in a highly synchronized rhythm. A sweep steers the boat as the paddlers “reach and catch,” pull and release and recover – and start the cycle again. And on a mercifully balmy Friday in May, 33 teams from Israel and abroad jumped aboard the magical boats at Kibbutz Ma’agan on the shore of the Kinneret and paddled towards a better future for Israel’s north.
‘THE IDEA for a Dragon Boat Israel Festival was born some four years ago,” explain Canadians Lisa Rosenkrantz and Debbie Halton-Weiss, who initiated the event on the Sea of Galilee last year. “We were in Israel for a Lion of Judah conference, and wanted to take home some of the spirit and vitality that we experienced here. We returned to Ottawa, and entered a boat race for women philanthropists in Canada, and discovered the enormous energy that was involved.”
The next step seemed obvious to Rosenkrantz and Halton-Weiss: create a similar event in Israel, and raise money for the north, an area already close to their hearts, through Partnership-2000.
“There were dragon boat festivals all over the Middle East,” they explain, “except in Israel. How hard, we wondered, could it be to set one up?” Pretty hard, it transpires. But Canadians with a plan are persistent; six Chinese boats were duly ordered and delivered, teams were invited to participate from around the world, and Israelis were introduced to paddles and pulling (do not call it rowing, whatever you do.) Israel’s Lion of Judah chapter roared into first place in the fund-raising category for the second year running, raising NIS 17,000 out of the more than NIS 140,000 netted by the event. Rutie Oren, dynamic chairman of LOJI, was delighted.
“Our organization is dedicated to promoting the empowerment of women and girls throughout Israel,” she explains, “and this was an extra bonus for us and a chance to contribute to this wonderful cause.”
Other teams included blind participants from “Can Velo,” a team representing the organization for Israel’s Guide Dogs for the visually impaired.
One Family Fund had victims of terror paddling, and Or Yarok’s team included champions of road safety. Among the other teams were the “One Size” paddlers and the “Crazies” from the IDF, kibbutz members and visitors from the city of Vancouver, Positive Thinkers and JNF Blazing Paddlers. Ohalo College came in first this year, speeding its way to glory on the happily almost-full waters of the lovely Kinneret.
SOME 20 years ago doctors in Canada discovered that rowing is good for the rehabilitation of women who have undergone surgery to remove lymph nodes during treatment for breast cancer.
In 1996 the first team of survivors entered a dragon boat race in Vancouver, carrying fuchsia roses to match their shirts (pink is the color associated with the fight against breast cancer).
The next year the flowers were tossed into the water in honor of a teammate who was unable to participate, and the traditional flower ceremony was born, now performed by breast cancer survivors whenever they race. Three teams of breast cancer survivors raced on the Kinneret – “Paddling for Life” (Hatira Lehaim), Israel Cancer Association (Yad Lehachlama), and “Think Positive.”
Representatives of the teams performed the moving rite on the Kinneret too, waving and tossing grown-in-Israel roses in a touching tribute to friends who did not make it to the race.
Those who were at the festival were treated to two days of training and competition which were both festive and perfectly organized. Team T-shirts and caps set a professional tone, stalls selling all manner of mementos were set up, and the boats sped past on a pond-perfect lake. Not only the crews benefit from the bash; Kibbutz Ma’agan, and the north as a whole, hosts hundreds of tourists for the festival.
Then there is the money, raised by the teams and additional peripheral activities.
This year artists including Menashe Kadishman and David Gerstein painted paddles for an auction, raising additional dollars for the two charities of choice: Bayit Ham (Warm Home) and Kav Hazinuk (The Starting Line). The first provides a warm home for adolescent girls at risk, removing them from abusive family situations and providing a nurturing environment complete with nutritious food, support with education, emotional well-being and empowering workshops to arm the students with tools to help face the future.
The Starting Line aims to create a new generation of leaders who will live in the periphery, developing the potential of the participants and teaching them to become the social, political and business leaders of the future.
Oded Salamon, managing director of Kav Hazinuk, is optimistic that the seminars, outdoor training and support that the participants receive over a period of 10 years will lead to many success stories and have a huge impact on the country.
HISTORICALLY, DRAGON boat festivals were held on the Duanwu day – the fifth day of the fifth Chinese lunar month, when summer sizzled. The sun and the dragon, both symbols of manhood, were particularly potent then, when the heat was at its height, soon after the summer solstice. The races entailed worshiping the dragon, and praying for much-needed rain. In Israel the solstice is weeks away, and, unusually for May, it drizzled on and off since the Friday festival, and then the heavens opened in a spectacular early summer storm. Who knows? Maybe the dragons are still doing their thing.