Peter Paltchik is auctioning his match-worn judogi from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games to fund PTSD recovery and resilience programs for ZAKA volunteers and their families.
The judogi is from August 1, 2024 – the day Peter won Israel’s first medal of those Games, alongside his coach, Oren Smadga, who had resolved to be there with Peter just weeks after losing his son.
Israel was at war when the Games began.
Israeli athletes competed under heavy security, carrying October 7th into everything.
Peter’s coach, Oren Smadga, was the first Israeli man ever to win an Olympic medal – bronze in judo at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Weeks before Paris, Oren’s 25-year-old son, Sergeant First Class (Res.) Omer Smadga, Hy”d, fell in the line of duty. Oren resolved to travel to Paris. To coach Peter and be there for each other.
On August 1, Peter stepped onto the mat for the under-100kg bronze medal match. He won! He ran to Oren, they held each other and wept – in what Peter later described as an embrace above nature.
Israel’s first medal of the 2024 Games.
This auction supports the recovery and resilience of ZAKA volunteers who respond to thousands of annual calls for help, saving lives and honoring lives lost in the most traumatic circumstances: terror attacks, accidents, crime scenes, missing person searches, natural disasters, and unattended deaths.
For many of the volunteers, the toll doesn’t arrive as a dramatic break. It accumulates. It lives in the volunteer who looks, from the outside, like he’s handling it – and is quietly carrying more than he should carry alone.
Through ZAKA’s Resilience Unit, the auction will fund personalized therapies, experiential workshops, family aid, crisis tools, and spiritual support – for the volunteer, and for his family.
Peter Paltchik’s match-worn judogi from the under-100kg bronze medal match at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Minimum bid: $50,000 USD.
Peter will personally call the winning bidder before the judogi is shipped.
Please place your bid using the form.
