Facing family tragedy, online antisemitism, US wrestler Amit Elor vies for gold in Paris

JTA — Amit Elor hasn’t lost a wrestling match in five years. When the California native steps onto the Olympic mat on Monday as a gold-medal contender, she will carry the scars born of her personal life and of her Israeli heritage.

Elor is the youngest US Olympic wrestler in history. She has already won eight world championships. She also leads a new generation of female wrestlers who have grown up with Olympic aspirations: Women’s wrestling was added to the Games in 2004, the year Elor was born.

Like many young athletes, Elor has chronicled her efforts on Instagram and TikTok, where she posts regularly about her training regimen, her injuries, her attempts to make weight and, of course, her many international victories.

She has been more subtle, however, about posting about her Jewish identity, especially after the October 7 onslaught on Israel, her parents’ homeland and where her extended family still lives. Each of her grandfathers came to Israel after the Holocaust, one after surviving concentration camps as a young teen and the other after narrowly evading the Nazis by fleeing to Russia with his family as a child.