David Mark Berger was born June 24, 1944, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the son of Dr. Benjamin and Mrs. Dorothy Berger, the eldest of three, including a sister and
  a brother, Barbara and Frederic. “He had a wonderful sense of humor. Very low-key. He wasn’t one to brag, but he was so bright,” Mrs. Berger said. “He was a
  Columbia Law School graduate. Passed the bar exam on his first try, which is no easy deal,” Dr. Berger said.
 
  Throughout his young and happy life, David Berger had ability, determination, and self-confidence. David was described as having a unique combination of “brains
  and brawn.” But he was more than that; he was an achiever: physically, mentally, and emotionally, he was constantly giving of himself. David was a National Merit
  Scholar, a college graduate with three degrees, a member of the U.S. Maccabiah team in both 1965 and 1969 (where he won the gold medal), the 1969 Junior
  Nationals Weightlifting Champion, and a 1972 Olympian.
 
  The sole athlete of a scholarly family, David Berger dreamed of participating in the Olympics soon after he began competitive weightlifting at age twelve.
  "He was compulsive about only weightlifting," recalls Dr. Berger. "Nothing else." David trained in Cleveland, Ohio, which had the only nearby weightlifting gym,
  meticulously recording each lift in a journal. 

  David possessed a photographic memory. "His eyes would look right through you" one weightlifter observed. A brilliant scholar and a gifted athlete, David
  graduated from Tulane University (B.A. in Psychology, 1966) and remained in college, earning an MBA and a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School (1970).
  While attending Tulane University in Louisiana, David Berger competed as a lightweight (148 lb. class) and as a middleweight (165 lb. class). While attending
  Columbia Law School in New York, he competed as a middleweight. Only after immigrating to Israel in 1970 did he move up to the lightheavy division (181 lb. class).
  His father was once quoted as saying, “I used to tell him, ‘You may not be the best weightlifter in the world, but you’re certainly the smartest!’” Family members and
  friends describe David as witty and rebellious, and a dry sense of humor. His fellow weightlifters describe David, at 5 and 1/2 feet and 181 pounds, as "two wardrobes
  wide" who needed to shave his heavy beard twice a day. At the Olympics, his long, thick, tousled hair and sideburns covered his jaw and extended to the base of his
  neck.

  David Berger was an idealist who wrote a poem protesting the Vietnam War. He was uncomfortable with the Olympics' nationalistic emphasis, while believing in its
  peaceful ideals. He also felt deeply about social justice, telling his father that he thought everyone, whether that person was a lawyer or garbage collector, should
  make the same salary for a day's work.

  David won a gold medal competing in the 1969 Maccabiah Game as a middleweight for the American team. While competing in Israel, he came to love the young
  nation and decided to move there. After making aliyah to Israel in 1970, he joined Maccabi Tel Aviv team and won the lightheavy division at the Israeli National
  weightlifting championships.

   In Tel Aviv, David taught weight training to the disabled and war veterans. At the 1971 Asian Games, he won a silver medal in the weightlifting competition for the
  Israeli team, and in 1972, achieved the honor of representing Israel as a member of the Israeli Olympic team. David was considering entering the Israeli military
  after he returned from the Olympics, but he was not an expatriate; he continued to hold dual citizenship with the United States and Israel. At the time of the 1972
  Olympics, David was not engaged to marry anyone, and according to those who knew him, had not yet decided what he would do next. David was licensed to
  practice law only in the state of New York, where he had passed the bar exam in 1970. He was working on improving his proficiency in Hebrew, but had not yet
  attained fluency needed to practice law in Israel, nor had he studied for the Israeli bar exam.
 

   In late August, he flew to Munich with the Israeli athletic team. On September 2, 1972, David competed, but was eliminated in an early round.

  While their parents stayed home during the Games, the three Berger siblings traveled to Munich, where Barbara visited David in the Olympic Village, easily gaining
  entrance with a borrowed Israeli team jacket, and watched her brother compete while wearing his Olympic team jacket.  

  David was one of eleven members of Israel’s Olympic team taken hostage and murdered by palestinian terrorists during the Munich Olympic Games. He was 28
  years old.

  David's goal was not winning a medal at Munich. Walking in the opening ceremonies and participating in the Olympics whose ideals of peace and brotherhood he
  believed in were honor enough. His Olympic dream was achieved.

  David Berger in many ways embodied what the International Olympic Committee describes as the Olympic spirit.

  The Berger family keeps David’s memory alive, through scholarship programs they established at Shaker Heights High School, and at the colleges where he 
  graduated. David's boyhood room in the family home remains unchanged, with his trophies, diplomas, and the same blue-green shag carpet popular in the 1960s.
  They make frequent visits to his grave, and regale their grandson David and namesake with stories about the beloved uncle he never got to meet.

  David’s nephew and namesake has heard many tales from his mother, who tells him he has his uncle's sense of humor. When he thinks of Uncle David, "I think of
  him smiling,” he told the Cleveland Jewish News. "Smiling and loving.”

 Olympic Gold for Israel!    

  For more than half a century, Israeli athletes have waited to hear their country’s national anthem, Hatikva, played after an Olympic victory. In 2004, on the twelfth
  day of the Olympics, Israeli Gal Fridman, a windsurfer, won the first gold medal in history for his proud nation of Israel. The anthem played, Israelis waved flags,
  and Fridman dedicated his medal to the eleven athletes who were murdered in Munich. Fridman said, "I'm sure they're watching us. We think about them all the
  time. They're always on our mind. When I get home, I will go to the memorial place for them in Tel Aviv and show them the gold medal."

  Fridman was born three years after the massacre that killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches, but like other Israeli children, the memory has resonated throughout
  his life.

  When athletes depart for an international competition, they gather at the memorial in Tel Aviv. Upon his return home, Fridman will make a pilgrimage to the
  memorial, to remember the slain athletes. He will bring his gold medal along.

  "I want to bring them the honor that is theirs," Fridman said. "I want to show it to them, to show them they are with us, to show we have moved on and that we are
  winning."

  "David would have been pleased," Dr. Berger said: "...he would have been happy to see an Israeli win.”