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Pickleball, America’s fastest-growing sport, is a hit at Jewish camps and sports tournaments
(JTA) — As head of programming for Maccabi USA, Shane Carr is used to having people ask him to add sports to the organization’s many Jewish sports tournaments around the world.
But since 2019, one sport has been suggested above all others: pickleball.
Widely considered the fastest-growing sport in America, pickleball is a sort of condensed court tennis and pingpong hybrid that has attracted millions of new fanatics since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, from middle schoolers to the likes of Bill Gates and LeBron James. Originally created in 1965 in Bainbridge Island, Washington, the sport adapted well to the quarantine era with its short learning curve and low-cost equipment.
One study estimates that 5 million people played pickleball in 2021, while the Sports & Fitness Industry Association found that participation in the sport nearly doubled in 2022 and has increased 158.6% over the past three years.
The Jewish world is no exception to the trend. The sport is a frequent sight at Jewish community centers and camps across the country, attracting players of all ages.
Carr said the requests to add pickleball to Maccabi events “blew up” during the pandemic. And after years of conversations about the sport’s popularity and potential — plus Carr getting “tired of saying no” — pickleball will officially be played at the Pan American Maccabi Games in Buenos Aires this December.
“The great part about pickleball is it’s so approachable, and people can pick it up so quickly,” Carr told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s a great opportunity to build community, especially Jewish community.”
Carr explained that adding a sport to the tournament is a multi-step process that included convincing the global Maccabiah body. He said the popularity of racket sports in Argentina helped their case, and that the Hacoaj sports club in Buenos Aires — where Jewish-Argentine tennis star Diego Schwartzman got his start — hosted a pickleball open house to help generate interest.
Delegations from the United States, Canada and Argentina will compete in pickleball at the Pan Am Games, and Carr said Israel could potentially join as well. The tournament will include traditional men’s and women’s singles and doubles, plus a team event and a “Pickle Palooza” offering for anyone who wants to play.
Carr also said Maccabi USA is hoping to include pickleball in the full 2025 Maccabiah Games in Israel.
The demand for pickleball has also skyrocketed at Jewish summer camps across the United States.
At Camp Avoda, a Jewish sports camp about 50 miles south of Boston, Director Ronni Guttin estimated that about 40 of the camp’s 140 campers are playing pickleball. It’s offered as an elective alongside tennis, and campers can also play during free time. Guttin lauded the sport’s accessibility, noting that it’s especially popular among kids who may find tennis too difficult.
Guttin said Avoda brought in a group of pickleball players to run a clinic for the first time last summer, and “it took off like crazy.” They brought the instructors back this summer, too.
The camp has two pickleball courts, but Guttin said that if they had five courts they would all fill up. “People are clamoring for it,” she added.
Camp Bauercrest, a Jewish sports camp 40 miles north of Boston in Amesbury, Massachusetts, did add more courts for this summer.
Director Ken Cotton said the camp had invited an alum to host pickleball clinics last year, and “the kids ate it up.” So when it came time to repair the camp’s tennis courts before this summer, Bauercrest added four outdoor pickleball courts to go along with two indoor courts.
The familiar “pop” that echoes from pickleball courts — which has caused real problems for those who live near them — has also become a common sound at numerous camps run by the Union for Reform Judaism and the Conservative Ramah movement.
Ruben Arquilevich, the URJ’s vice president who oversees its 14 camps, told JTA the sport is now offered at multiple camps, adding that it is “very popular.”
At Eisner Camp in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, one of the camp’s tennis instructors has also started teaching pickleball. Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, California, lists pickleball among its many offered activities, and the URJ’s 6 Points Sports Academy in Asheville, North Carolina, offers it as an elective.
Pickleball is also now offered at the Ramah movement’s day camp in Nyack, New York, and its overnight camp in Wisconsin, according to Ramah’s national director Amy Skopp Cooper.
At the Ramah camp in Ojai, California — about 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles — pickleball has become “the sport of the summer,” said Molly Auerbach, the camp’s program director.
Ramah California offers pickleball during its sports period, taught by a pickleball coach, as well as during free time and a weekly Shabbat pickleball tournament.
“I would say it’s become one of the themes of the summer and most people have tried it, if not become obsessed with playing it,” Auerbach told JTA.
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The post Pickleball, America’s fastest-growing sport, is a hit at Jewish camps and sports tournaments appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.