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Today’s American Jews finally have their era’s Sandy Koufax
Something strange, funny and frankly delicious happened on social media last Tuesday night: A legion of extremely online sports fans stepped forward one by one to admit that the NBA’s most famous Israeli was, unfortunately, very good at basketball.
Deni Avdija, the 25-year-old forward for the Portland Trail Blazers, had just scored 41 points and the game-winning basket in a winner-takes-all game, carrying his team to its first playoff appearance in five years. Under the greatest pressure of his career, he had been undeniable.
One poor social media user grieving the revelation practically wept: “Deni a f—ing hooper bro I’m sorry I’m sorry.” Wrote another: “I don’t think there’s ever been a player to shut me up as much as Deni has tonight.
Others clarified the root of all the dismay. “Accidentally celebrated Denicide,” one confessed, using a crude portmanteau you can probably figure out. Another said Avdija had beaten his opponent “IDF style.” Their bitterness was not about Avdija the basketball player, in other words. It was about his country of birth, the wars it has waged and the awful human toll of the last two-and-a-half years.
It is both the projection of anti-Israel resentments onto Avdija and his ability to transcend them that make him the defining Jewish athlete of our time, a Sandy Koufax figure for the 21st-century. Koufax’s decision to sit out a World Series game on Yom Kippur was a snapshot of Jewish assimilation questions in midcentury America; Avdija’s breakthrough, and the tempest it provoked, reflect the tensions around Israel and Zionism inherent to American Jewish experience today.
No Jewish pro athlete since Koufax — not a slugger like Shawn Green or another ace pitcher like Max Fried; not an Orthodox overachiever like Ryan Turell — has carried the emotional valence of the post-10/7 Israeli NBA star. Avdija unites and divides simply by keeping his team on TV. At the outset of every playoff game, NBC allows each team’s starters to introduce themselves and state their alma mater. Avdija, who did not attend college, says “Herzeliya, Israel.” It feels significant.
Avdija has said fairly little about Israeli politics or the war, but left enough crumbs for any hater or superfan to work with. He has posted standard (though to most Jewish fans still meaningful) solidarity messages along the lines of “Am Yisrael Chai.” He shared on social media that he personally knew Oct. 7 victims and Sharpied the names of fallen Israeli soldiers on his shoes. These messages are undoubtedly political — they are comments on Jewish nationhood and a raging war. And while Avdija has not carried water for his country’s leadership, he also has not condemned it.
He also served, albeit briefly in the Israeli army. This was in 2020, long before World War III began and, as the Guardian’s Lee Escobedo wrote, at an age most people have not formed ironclad opinions. Drafted by the Washington Wizards as a teenager, he was exempt from mandatory service; nevertheless, he enlisted briefly and did something along the lines of basic training. Avdija completed his service under an “Outstanding Athlete” designation, and never saw combat.
Nevertheless, online NBA fans have taken to calling him a war criminal, and some have — ironically, I think? — attributed his ability to earn free throws to the domineering influence of Benjamin Netanyahu.
It’s clear Avdija hears the noise that has become familiar to many American Jews in the last two years. “It’s frustrating to see all the hate,” he said. “Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player.”
Perhaps a desire to overcome bias against his nationality has motivated his recent success. After last Tuesday’s masterpiece, he poured in 30 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists in a loss to the heavily favored San Antonio Spurs; in Game 2, Avdija used his signature deceleration move to set up the game-winning alley-oop dunk. It felt especially good, he said afterward, to win on the Israeli Day of Independence. (Game 3 of the best-of-seven series is tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime).
Freighted with the ambassadorship of an unpopular country, Avdija is only capable, or willing, of representing it by being the best basketball player he can be. That approach is as valid as the frustration he isn’t saying or doing more — this is sports, where the dreams and anxieties of the viewing public are always projected onto the contestants, and this is the sports hero we’re getting.
No more than Koufax solved assimilation can Avdija define the terms of Zionism and Jewish identity. And it’s possible his big moment has yet to come. In the meantime, Avdija is modeling the kind of excellence that gave Koufax — holder of three Cy Young awards and four World Series trophies — a platform to begin with. More than anything, people love a winner.
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
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Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — An Orthodox Jewish man is in stable condition after being stabbed on Wednesday evening in the Diamond District of midtown Manhattan. Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
Police told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible antisemitic attack, and Manhattan Shomrim — the Jewish community watch group — has asked people to share footage as police search for the suspect. No arrests have been made.
The victim was identified by police as a 26-year-old man, and Orthodox Jewish outlet COLLive identified him as a resident of Crown Heights, the neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Police said they were called at about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday after the man was stabbed in the back with “an unknown sharp object” on 47th Street near Fifth Avenue. ABC7 reported that the victim told investigators he believed he was stabbed with a needle or syringe.
According to the Chabad website, which published an interview with the victim, he is a recently ordained Hasidic rabbi named Joseph, who commutes to Midtown each day to wrap tefillin with Jewish merchants. The attacker, Joseph told the website, was a woman who seemed to be following him prior to the stabbing.
The attack comes as Jewish New Yorkers have been targeted in more than half of the hate crimes committed in New York City this year, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
In July, an assailant stabbed two men on the Upper West Side, including one who was leaving a synagogue, while yelling “Allahu akbar,” and was charged with committing hate crimes.
Louis Keene contributed reporting.
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VIDEO: A Hasid gives us a tour of Morocco in Yiddish
דער ירושלימער יוטוב־שטערן וועלוול קירשנבוים האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש פֿון אַ פּרעכטיקן וויזיט, וואָס ער האָט געמאַכט אין מאַראָקאָ. עס באַגלייט אים זײַן חבֿר אַבֿרהם פּרץ.
אינעם ווידעאָ זעט מען ווי קירשנבוים דאַוונט שחרית מיט די אָרטיקע ייִדן און באַזוכט אַ גוט אָפּגעהיטענעם בית־עולם, וווּ עס ליגן באַערדיקט גרויסע צדיקים ווי למשל הרבֿ חיים בן עתר (1696–1743), באַקאַנט ווי דער „אור החיים“. „מענטשן מיינען, אַז נאָר אין אייראָפּע זענען דאָ קבֿרים פֿון צדיקים!“ זאָגט קירשנבוים.
מיר זעען אַ גרויסע, שיינע שיל מיט אַ פֿײַנער אַרכיטעקטור אין קאַזאַבלאַנקאַ; דעם גרויסן אַראַבישן שוק, וווּ קירשנבוים קויפֿט זיך אײַן מלבושים פּונקט ווי די מאַראָקאַנער גייען אָנגעטאָן. ער באַוווּנדערט אויך די שיינע טיי־גלעזער און טשײַניקן, וואָס מע פֿאַרקויפֿט דאָרט, און באַקענט זיך מיט אַ ייִדישן סוחר וואָס האַנדלט מיט זילבער און גאָלד, פּונקט אַזוי ווי זײַן טאַטע און זיידע האָבן געטאָן פֿאַר דור־דורות.
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