{"id":882,"date":"2008-08-20T16:49:16","date_gmt":"2008-08-20T16:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for.php"},"modified":"2008-08-20T16:49:16","modified_gmt":"2008-08-20T16:49:16","slug":"rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>United Press International &#8211; August 19, 2008 <\/strong><br \/>\nBEIJING, Aug 19, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) &#8212; For Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, the road to the Beijing Olympics was an obstacle course to provide Kosher food and spiritual comfort to Jewish athletes.<br \/>\nAlthough Beijing has at least one Kosher restaurant, where Freundlich certifies the food, Judaism is not one of the five religions that have official recognition in China. Freundlich told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Chinese officials did not &#8220;really know how to operate,&#8221; although they knew that Olympic bylaws required a synagogue, rabbi and Kosher food.<br \/>\n&#8220;Only after I made it clear to them that I understood my appointment was not an official government appointment did the Chinese agree to meet with me,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nThe Chabad organization, which Freundlich represents, had to get special permission to bring religious groups to Beijing. It took complaints from Jewish athletes to get Kosher food instead of airplane-style vegetarian meals prepared according to Muslim dietary law.<br \/>\nFreundlich got special permission to bring challah bread into the Olympic Village for the Sabbath &#8212; with Chinese Olympic officials keeping an eagle eye on its preparation.<br \/>\nSome of his colleagues from other faiths at the Olympics complained before the Games that no one was coming to services.<br \/>\n&#8220;Have patience,&#8221; he told them. &#8220;When the Games begin, they will come looking for God.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>URL: www.upi.com<br \/>\nCopyright 2008 by United Press International<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>United Press International &#8211; August 19, 2008 BEIJING, Aug 19, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) &#8212; For Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, the road to the Beijing Olympics was an obstacle course to provide Kosher food and spiritual comfort to Jewish athletes. Although Beijing has at least one Kosher restaurant, where Freundlich certifies the food, Judaism is not&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"United Press International &#8211; August 19, 2008 BEIJING, Aug 19, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) &#8212; For Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, the road to the Beijing Olympics was an obstacle course to provide Kosher food and spiritual comfort to Jewish athletes. Although Beijing has at least one Kosher restaurant, where Freundlich certifies the food, Judaism is not&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-20T16:49:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics","og_description":"United Press International &#8211; August 19, 2008 BEIJING, Aug 19, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) &#8212; For Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, the road to the Beijing Olympics was an obstacle course to provide Kosher food and spiritual comfort to Jewish athletes. Although Beijing has at least one Kosher restaurant, where Freundlich certifies the food, Judaism is not&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-08-20T16:49:16+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for","name":"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-20T16:49:16+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-20T16:49:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/08\/rabbi-overcomes-obstacles-for#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Rabbi Overcomes Obstacles for Olympics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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