Moshe Weinberg was the coach of the Israeli international wrestling team as well as being the coach of Hapoel Tel Aviv. He was the Israeli youth champion in wrestling and also the adult champion for a period of 8 years. He began his career in Hapoel Haifa, later becoming a certified coach at the Wingate Institute. In his capacity as national wrestling coach, he was sent to the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich. He was among eleven Israeli team members who were killed by Palestinian terrorists in what is known as "the Munich massacre".
Death
In the early morning hours of 5 September 1972, eight members of Black September entered the Olympic Village, Munich and broke into apartment 1 at Connollystraße 31, which housed five coaches and two referees of the Israeli Olympic team. As the terrorists broke into the apartment, Weinberg was confronted by the group's leader, Luttif Afif, whose own mother was Jewish and whose father was a wealthy Christian Arab businessman from Nazareth, in a nearby bedroom. Weinberg picked up a nearby fruit knife and was shot through his cheek after slashing Afif, slicing his left breastpocket open but not reaching through to the flesh. The wounded Weinberg was ordered by the terrorists at gunpoint to show them where the Israelis were. Weinberg led the terrorists past Apartment 2, which housed the fencers, shooters and track athletes, and instead took them to Apartment 3, which housed Israel's weightlifters and wrestlers. However, taken by surprise, the six athletes of Apartment 3 were captured by the terrorists. While the hostages were being marched back to the officials' apartment, Weinberg once again attacked the intruders, knocking one of them, Mohammed Safady, unconscious and allowing one of his wrestlers, Gad Tsobari, to escape via an underground parking garage. The terrorists fatally shot Weinberg, then threw his body into the street. In moving the hostages to the coaches' apartment, the terrorists killed weightlifterYossef Romano after he attempted to resist the terrorists. The nine remaining hostages were also subsequently killed in what became known as the Munich massacre. Atif and four other terrorists were killed by German snipers on 6 September. Weinberg's actor son, Guri, portrayed his father in the 2005 movieMunich.
