I’m not sure you’ve heard (are you living under a rock?), but we’re just months away from being center stage.

More than a thousand athletes, coaches and admirable hangers-on will file off planes from all over the world and make the 30-minute trek down I-29 to alight here in the heartland.

And they’re all Jewish… so I’m not talking about the World Cup.

Kansas City is hosting the 2026 JCC Maccabi Games for the first time in almost 30 years this August. For one week, we will be home to teenagers from all across the country, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Israel, Ukraine and our sister communities in Bulgaria and Romania. They are dancers, swimmers and players of the best ball sports  — volleyball, baseball, basketball and football, both American and otherwise. Some are coming for the chance to report on the games and learn the ins-and-outs of sports journalism and broadcasting. All are in for the experience of a lifetime.

Ask any of the hundreds of Kansas Citians who attended Maccabi as a teen athlete just last year and a generation ago. Old and young, they all use words like “unforgettable,” “pride” and “community.” Any of them can tell you that it was the first time they felt like they really belonged to a Jewish People.

On its most basic level, this Olympic-style competition puts the spotlight squarely on Kansas City. It’s our chance to show the world — literally, the world — the meaning of Midwestern Hospitality. We get to show off the Jewish Community Campus, a beautiful and ever-expanding facility where the school meets the shul meets the pool. Athletic competitions will be in locations across Johnson County, everywhere from Bluhawk to area high schools. The opening ceremonies will be at Municipal Auditorium nestled in the soaring skyline of downtown. It’s one of the few places big enough to hold all those people and all that ruach – spirit.

It’s not just the athletes who are coming. It’s teens, coaches, community members, Jewish professionals and city leaders from all over the world.

My work brings me in contact with people from a lot of other places, and I can tell you that few take pride in their hometown quite like Kansas Citians. Pride alone should have you running to participate.

But the higher calling of the Maccabi Games is Peoplehood. And when we talk about “our People,” putting a few of them up for the week and giving them lifts a couple times a day seems like a low bar. Inconvenient? For sure. But these kids are my People!

I am opening my home to three Jewish teens from Aug. 2-8 because…

  • I remember being the only Jewish kid in my grade and that it felt special, but lonely.
  • I remember when my parents hosted an Israeli summer camp counselor when I was a kid, and it felt like the whole world opened up.
  • I remember attending my first organized Jewish trip and finding myself in the largest gathering of Jews I had ever seen, and it felt incredible.

I am also opening my home to three Jewish teens because…

  • I want my own kids to see incredibly hip teenagers doing something Jewish.
  • I want my own kids to see that “doing Jewish” isn’t just about going to synagogue.
  • I want my own kids to see that being Jewish is reason enough to let someone crash in our basement.

I am opening my home to three Jewish teens — three kids I’ve never met and may never see again — because we were at Sinai together. (Also because three is the most I can fit into my car between the car seats and skateboards, and The J will provide me with the necessary air mattresses.)

The week of the Maccabi games, I’m not going to be able to get into my office on the third floor of the Campus. I’ll have to show a badge to even enter the parking lot. (We live in a particularly strange time when these annoyances actually bring relief that security is being taken so seriously.)

But it’s worth it. For peoplehood.

See you at the Games.

More information about the Maccabi Games is available at jcckcmaccabi.org.