The lone delegate from Palestine to the 1929 World Maccabi Congress, Joseph Yekutieli presented a concept for what he called the Maccabiah Games. His proposal was unanimously approved, and plans were organized to stage the first Maccabiah in Tel Aviv on March 29 to April 6, 1932.

Active on many committees, Yekutieli was a founder of the Soccer Football Federation in 1928; one of the founders in 1931 of the Amateur Sports Association; and in 1933, a founder of the Eretz Yisroel Olympic Committee. He was Israel’s representative to the Asian Sports Federation Games and received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievements in 1979.

Yekutieli immigrated to Palestine in 1908. After several years of physical education schooling in Jerusalem and Yaffa, he was conscripted to serve as a physical education instructor and translator in the Turkish Army and was decorated with the Ottoman Iron Ribbon.