In 2016, Beatie Deutsch placed sixth in the Jerusalem half marathon. Watching Deutsch, an Israeli born in the United States, you would have never guessed that she had taken up running only four months earlier. The following year she ran the Tel Aviv Marathon while seven months pregnant with her fifth child.
Even while running, the Orthodox Jewish Deutsch dresses modestly. She wears a headscarf, elbow-length shirt and a knee-length skirt covering her leggings — unlikely attire for a star athlete.
Just a few short years after her first race, Deutsch placed first in the 2018 Jerusalem Marathon. In 2019, she won Israel’s National Championships Marathon, and she quickly became the Israeli national champion in the marathon and half marathon. Most notably, she qualified for the 2020 Olympics by ranking among the top 80 women runners in the world.
Adidas, one of the biggest sportswear companies in the world, took notice of Deutsch and decided to highlight her because of — not despite — her religious observance. With her usual headscarf, skirt and long sleeves, Deutsch was featured in Adidas’ “Impossible is Nothing” campaign, which hopes to unite people through sports and expand the limits of human possibilities.
Within Israel, the campaign is hard to miss — it’s online, and there’s a giant billboard of Deutsch on the Ayalon highway near Tel Aviv.
Read more at Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com}
