Beatie Deutsch’s Jewish Sequel to Chariots of Fire

The Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire was about two British runners who competed in the Olympic Games of 1924. It was based on the true story of Harold Abrahams, a Jew, and Eric Liddell, a devout Christian who refused to run on Sunday, his Sabbath.

In the end, they both won gold medals, but the movie is a study in contrasts. The Christian is a kind, principled, idealistic man who “runs for the glory of God.” The Jew is an angry, ambitious, sometimes rude man who tells his non-Jewish girlfriend that he runs because it’s “a compulsion, a weapon against being Jewish.” Faced with rampant antisemitism as a student at Cambridge, he says, “I’m going to take them on, all of them, one by one, and run them off their feet.”

Chariots of Fire begins with the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams—in a church. He was buried beside his non-Jewish wife in the Saint John the Baptist Churchyard in Hertfordshire. In 1936, Britain’s Amateur Athletic Union considered a boycott of Hitler’s Berlin Olympics. Abrahams successfully led the fight against boycotting the Berlin Olympics. Sports were more important to him than principles. He went to Germany as a sports reporter and sat near Hitler. Throughout the movie, Abrahams has no connection to Judaism except as the victim of antisemitism.

Ian Charleson starred as Eric Liddell opposite Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire

Four decades after Chariots of Fire, enter Jewish runner Beatie Deutsch, Israel’s female marathon champion. A proud and passionately religious Jew, while training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she was informed that her race was taking place on Shabbat. She refused to run.

Unlike Eric Liddell in the 1924 Olympics, Beatie, who qualified only for the women’s marathon, was given no other possibilities to compete. After Eric refused to run on Sunday in the 100-meter heats, his colleague on the British team offered him his place in the 400-meter race taking place on a weekday. He won the gold medal in that race.

Originally, the women’s marathon in the 2020 Olympics was scheduled to be held on Sunday. The heat of Tokyo necessitated moving the marathon to a more temperate island. The schedule was changed, and the women’s marathon was switched to Saturday. Beatie petitioned the Olympic Committee to change the date. They had already exhibited their willingness to accommodate Muslim athletes by setting up a special committee to work with them, because the Olympics were held during the month of Ramadan when religious Muslims fast until sunset. The special committee managed a concession that the qualifying heats would be held later in the day. No concessions were made for Beatie Deutsch’s religious needs.

“I don’t expect them to change a race for one athlete,” she says. “However, we’re moving toward a world with more tolerance and diversity. There’s a whole coalition of athletes, of which I’m a member, to let athletes have more of a say, that their needs should be taken into consideration, not just the needs of media and sponsors. All I’m saying is that if we understand that there’s a marathon runner in the elite pool of woman marathon runners who keeps the Sabbath, why can’t we respect that as we respect so many other individual profiles? I don’t think it’s impossible to accommodate religion in sport, just as we accommodate gender in sport.”

Beatie and her family

This year, Beatie qualified for the World Athletics Championships, to be held in Budapest this August. When the schedule was recently published, Beatie saw that the women’s marathon is scheduled for Shabbat and she dropped out of the race.

It was the third big international competition she has sacrificed for the sake of Shabbat.

Understandably, the Israeli government, which has been sponsoring Beatie’s training, including three weeks of training in the high elevations of Kenya this past year, was frustrated. It was the third big international competition she has sacrificed for the sake of Shabbat. They pressured her to consult her rabbi, who said that the holiness of Shabbat cannot be violated for any race.

It’s not only about Shabbat. Beatie consistently sticks to her principles in all areas. She runs dressed modestly in long sleeves, a skirt covering her knees, and a head covering. “I think it's empowering for all women,” she says, “to know that you don't have to expose your body to win."

She runs to raise money for Beit Daniella, a rehabilitation center for teens struggling with mental challenges.

Originally from New Jersey, Beatie moved to Israel in 2008. She is the devoted mother of five children, some of whom she has brought with her onto the winner’s podium.

In Chariots of Fire, the Christian runner Eric Liddell said he was running for the glory of God. Beatie Deutsch is doing the same. She told Aish.com, “I think that if God gives you a gift, and you use it to the fullest, and acknowledge that it’s from God, that’s how you glorify God in this world. For me, running has always been a platform to bring God’s light into the world. Serving God and building a family as part of that are my first priorities.”

Beatie Deutsch, a champion runner, an exceptional human being, and a passionately loyal Jew, is our generation’s rejoinder to Chariots of Fire.

Stay tuned! Aish.com will be featuring Beatie Deutsch’s course Becoming a Champion