Awards dinner honors Calabasas, Agoura Hills athletes

Jason Novak

Thirty athletes from across Southern California will be honored for their leadership, sportsmanship and athleticism this Saturday evening at the annual Night of Maccabi Champions at the new Milken Jewish Community Center in West Hills.

The honorees include a future UCLA Bruin baseball star from Agoura Hills, among others.

The athletes make-up the successful 2004 Los Angeles Maccabi Team that competed against 40 other delegations from across the United States and came home with 118 total medals.

"The best part about competing in the Maccabi Games was meeting players from all over the world" said Michelle Targon, a Calabasas High School basketball player and Maccabi Champion honoree.

"We played against teams from Detroit, Montreal and Philadelphia and I had the opportunity to room with two members of the Australian basketball team," Targon said. "Competing in this year’s Maccabi Games was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Targon plays for her local high school basketball team in Calabasas, where her defensive skills are a valuable asset.

The Maccabi Champion honorees also include Calabasas track star JordanYallen, who earned six medals at the games, and Agoura Hills High School soccer star Roye Ergas, who has competed in two Maccabi games while sporting a hefty 3.6 grade point average.

The other honored athletes include Danielle Bernard, Jason Novak and Roye Ergas from Agoura Hills; Jonathan Fields, Samantha Marder, Trevor Nathanson and Jillian Schnitman from Calabasas; and Aaron Friedland from Thousand Oaks.

The Jewish Community Center (JCC) Maccabi Games is an Olympic-style sporting competition that takes place each summer in North America and is the largest organized sports program for Jewish teenagers in the world.

Teams travel from cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico to compete yearly. This national competition has featured a number of world class Jewish athletes including Olympic swimmers Mark Spitz and Lenny Krayzelburg. Los Angeles sent one of the largest delegations to this year’s games in Columbus, Boston and Washington throughout the month of August.

   The first North American JCC Maccabi Games were in 1982 with 300 athletes competing. Today, more than 6,000 teen athletes participate in the Olympic-style sporting competition each summer.

Every four years, the best Jewish athletes in the world travel to Israel to compete in the World Maccabi Games. This year, Calabasas student tennis star Jillian Schnitman will be representing the United States at the games in Israel.

"My favorite part of this year’sgames was touring Boston’s historical sites," said Novak, an Agoura High School pitcher and a gold medal winner four years in a row at the games. Novak volunteers for the Varsity Baseball Mentoring Project at local elementary schools, and will attend UCLA this fall on a baseball scholarship.

"The New JCC at Milken is committed to providing a place where all teens feel welcome and at home," said Michael Jesser, director of community programs. "One way we’ve been successful doing this is through the JCC Maccabi program."

Interested student athletes can learn about next year’s Maccabi program at an information session on Sunday, Jan. 30.

The New JCC at Milken helps to continue the spirit of the Maccabi games through its year-round teen athletic programs, community service opportunities, and social and recreational programs, including: travel and adventure groups, professional sporting event trips, fitness classes and music and drama clubs.

The new center, formerly known as the West Valley Jewish Community Center, is located on the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus in West Hills. The 100,000 square foot facility also houses the headquarters of the Jewish Federation Valley Alliance, 14 social service agencies, pre-school and after-school program classrooms, the Gregory Gymnasium, Farber Teen Center, Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, state of the art fitness facility, and the Finegood Art Gallery.

The New JCC at Milken, a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation, serves as a hub of Jewish activity in the San Fernando Valley, including programming in the areas of social, cultural, educational and recreational development.