Written by Charlie Ben-Ami
Juliet Schiff has been a part of Maccabi USA for almost as long as she can remember.
Schiff volunteered at her first Maccabiah in 2009 when she was just 22 years old, but she started contributing to Maccabi USA long before. During her middle school days in Philadelphia, Schiff’s best friend’s mom, Barbara Lissy, was the executive director of Maccabi USA. This not only helped expose Juliet to the Maccabi movement but also allowed her to get hands-on experience at a young age.
“When we were out of school, we would go down to the office and help out,” said Schiff. “This was in the days of paper applications to apply to play sports, so we would be filing applications that were coming in for the different events, listening to voicemails, all that kind of stuff.”
Schiff’s exposure to Maccabi USA also came from her own family. Her father, Brian, covered Maccabi events as a writer for the Jewish Times and also coached the Philadelphia JCC basketball team for 27 years. Brian was given a chance to coach the American squad at the 1999 Pan American Maccabi Games, the first of his many international experiences with Maccabi USA.
Through his work for the JCC, Juliet’s father took Jewish high school students on week-long trips to Israel, helping them connect with their Jewish identity. His passion for sport and Judaism has had a lasting effect on his daughter.
“Seeing the different things that he was doing and the impact that he was having on all these kids in all these different ways, I just always thought that was really cool and wanted to figure out how I could get involved,” said Schiff.
Schiff took a very meaningful step in her final year of high school. For her senior project, Juliet aided Maccabi USA in preparing for the 2005 Maccabiah and attended the event as a spectator.
“It was an opportunity to help other people connect with being Jewish and build on my love of sports, even though I wasn’t competing in a sport,” remarked Schiff.
By the next Maccabiah in 2009, Schiff was on board as an Accommodations Manager for Maccabi USA. And now, 16 years later, Juliet has been elevated to the position of lead manager for Maccabi USA. This role has put her in charge of coordinating the logistics of taking a large group of about 1,250 athletes, coaches, managers and specialists to an international competition. 
In July, she’ll take a month off from her day job as a quality control supervisor for the Boston Red Sox to make this trip to Israel. There, she’ll be actively involved in coordinating travel, hotel accommodations, transportation, meals, other necessities for the entire U.S. delegation.
“Really, we are dealing with anything,” remarked Schiff. “If your match gets delayed and you’re going to miss dinner, I’m back at the hotel figuring out how I’m going to feed 50 people when they get off a bus at 11 o’clock and are starving.”
These logistics become even more important when you consider that about 50% of Maccabi USA’s athletes are under 18 years old.
“This is the first time that they are doing something, most likely without their parents also accompanying them,” said Schiff. “So the other aspect of that is being a person that the parents can ask a question to that’s not directly tied to their sport, that has more information about other things.”
Schiff worked both the Pan American Maccabi Games in Argentina at the end of 2023 and the European Maccabi Youth Games in England last summer – the two most recent Games following the October 7th terrorist attacks. This summer’s event, though, poses unique challenges, being the first international Maccabi event held in Israel since the start of the war.
“This is probably going to be the first time that we’ll be at a Maccabiah where there is the danger of sirens going off (indicating the need to find shelter) while we’re there,” said Schiff.
Even with those challenges in mind, Schiff sees an opportunity for a Maccabiah that has a stronger impact than many of its predecessors.
“I just think that the emotional tie of having this event at this point in time is going to be very different than any other Maccabi experience,” remarked Schiff.
Schiff has been working tirelessly since 2022, making sure that the U.S. delegation has all of its needs taken care of for 2025, ensuring athletes can focus on dominating their sports and safely bring medals back home to the U.S.
Charlie Ben-Ami is a graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and currently works as a freelance play-by-play broadcaster in the New York metropolitan area. You can follow his work @charliebenami on X and here at maccabiusa.com.