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20 Jewish men’s and women’s college basketball players to watch in 2023-24
(JTA) — A standout at perennial powerhouse Duke. An Israeli WNBA prospect with a twin sister in the Israeli Defense Forces. A member of the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Those are just a few of the compelling stories from the best Jewish basketball players in the NCAA this year. Many are Israeli, with an eye on the situation back home.
“Trying to stay on top of school and basketball and also knowing everything going on at home was hardest the first week, and it still is hard,” said Romi Levy, a senior at the University of South Florida.
Here are 10 men and 10 women to watch, in alphabetical order, as the NCAA season begins on Monday.
Lior Berman shown in action during a game against Morehead State. (Auburn Athletics)g
Lior Berman, Auburn
The 6-foot-4 guard looks to build off a season in which he played a key role off the bench for the Tigers. Berman has also bonded with coach Bruce Pearl — one of the sport’s most outspoken Jewish coaches — who got Berman a full scholarship for the first time this past offseason.
Camilla Emsbo, Duke
A graduate transfer from Yale, the 6-foot-5 Emsbo did not play last year due to injury. In three seasons at Yale, Emsbo was a two-time All-Ivy League selection, scored 1,092 points and finished in the top 10 in program history in rebounds and blocks. If at full strength, Emsbo — who would’ve played in the 2023 Maccabiah Games had she been healthy — will be an impact player in the ultra-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference.
Jaclyn Feit, Franklin & Marshall (Div. III)
The 6-foot-3 Maccabiah Games veteran from North Carolina enters her senior year following a standout season in which she averaged 9.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.9 blocks per game.
Spencer Freedman, New York University (Div. III)
Now in his sixth year of college hoops, the graduate student and former three-star recruit played four years of basketball at Harvard and enters his second season with NYU. The 6-foot guard garnered Third Team All-America honors from D3hoops.com last year after averaging 17.0 points and 5.6 assists per game.
Lior Garzon, Oklahoma State
The 6-foot-1 senior forward from Raanana, Israel, spent two seasons at Villanova before transferring to Oklahoma State last year, where she averaged 10.8 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, shooting 41% from 3-point range. The WNBA hopeful has talked about the differing styles of play in Israel and the United States.
Yarden Garzon shoots a free throw in a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind., Jan. 26, 2023. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
Yarden Garzon, Indiana
The younger Garzon sister played a pivotal role for the top-10 Hoosiers, starting in all 32 games and averaging 11.1 points per game. She talked to the Hoosier Network earlier this year about the anxiety of having a twin sister in the Israeli army.
Benny Gealer, Stanford
After starting his freshman year as a walk-on, the 6-foot-1 guard earned a scholarship ahead of this season. The lone high schooler on the 2022 Maccabiah Games gold medalist USA team (who is also a member of the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame) made 12 appearances off the bench for the Cardinal last season.
Adara Groman, University of New Hampshire
A three-year key cog in the Wildcats rotation, the 5-foot-8 guard is coming off a career-best season in which she started 27 games and averaged 8.2 points per game.
Lilah Grubman, Yale
After missing her freshman season with a torn ACL, the sophomore guard is one of JTA’s student athletes to watch this season. She was a two-time conference player of the year at Syosset High School in New York, where she scored over 1,000 points and led her team to four consecutive undefeated conference championships. She’s not the first Jewish basketball star to come out of that same school — WNBA icon Sue Bird played there in the ninth and tenth grades.
Yarin Hasson, University of Southern Indiana
A member of the national champion UConn Huskies team last year as a freshman, the 6-foot-9 forward played just 11 minutes across 11 games. But Hasson, who boasts a 7-foot-1 wingspan, transferred to a less competitive league and is now a potential breakout candidate as a sophomore. The former member of the Israeli under-18 national team played for Maccabi Rishon Lezion’s junior team, winning the 2014 Israel Cup and 2016 National Championship.
Raziel Hayun, Manhattan College
The 6-foot-4 guard who averaged 4 points per game last year as a freshman hails from Eilat, the southern Israeli coastal city.
Romi Levy lost high school friends in the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7. (South Florida Athletics)
Romi Levy, University of South Florida
After three years at Auburn, the 6-foot-5 junior enters her first season at USF. A 2021 SEC All-Freshman Team selection, Levy missed her sophomore year due to an ACL tear. She returned last winter, averaging 6.7 points and 4.2 points per game, flashing the ability to connect from 3-point distance. She lost some of her high school friends during the Re’im music festival terrorist attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. Her cousin, one year younger and like “a little brother,” was called into the army. “Trying to stay on top of school and basketball and also knowing everything going on at home was hardest the first week, and it still is hard,” Levy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Lola Mullaney, Harvard
A two-time All-Ivy League Second Team player who has played in the Maccabiah Games, Mullaney enters her senior year with career averages of 14 points and 3.4 rebounds per game across 832 appearances — all but one of which she started.
Shirel Nahum, UC Irvine
The Raanana native, who is expected to play a key role off the bench as a freshman this winter, represented Team Israel at the last two FIBA U18 Women’s European Championships. She at first considered playing professionally in Israel instead of playing for a U.S. college team. “Being far from home isn’t easy, especially with the time difference, makes it tough to talk with your [friends and family,]” she told JTA. “In the beginning, everything was new and different, including the language, but then I started getting used to it a little bit and now am getting better all the time.”
Ofri Naveh, West Virginia
The 6-foot-6 wing played with Team Israel at the FIBA U18 European Championship this summer and is a rare scholarship player at a top Division I school. He’s a native of Neot Golan, a moshav in the Golan Heights.
Blake Peters shoots in a game against the Harvard Crimson at Lavietes Pavilion in Allston, Mass., Feb. 25, 2023. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Blake Peters, Princeton
Dubbed “the most interesting man in the NCAA tournament” by NJ.com last winter, the 6-foot-1 sharpshooter enters his junior year with momentum after helping the Tigers to the Sweet 16. Peters averaged 6 points per game and broke out in the second round of the tournament with a 17-point outburst against Missouri.
Maddie Plank, Davidson
The 5-foot-11 redshirt junior guard transferred to Davidson last year after two years at Princeton — where she played briefly with former Jewish Tigers star Abby Meyers. (The two also played together at the Maccabiah Games.) Plank averaged 5.9 points per game across 30 appearances (21 starts) in her debut season with the Wildcats.
Michael Rabinovitch, Holy Cross
Could this be the 6-foot-10 forward’s breakout year? The senior appeared in just 26 games over his first three seasons but remains an intriguing prospect with his size. He made several Jewish friends while playing in the Maccabiah Games last year. “A lot of my friends that I made at the Maccabiah Games actually stayed over there to play professionally,” he told Spectrum News 1. “So, they were there during the outbreak of war. A lot of them have made their way back here, but some of them are stuck over there.”
Ben Shtolzberg, UC Santa Barbara
Look for the 6-foot-4 guard, who transferred from Creighton, to crack the Gauchos’ regular rotation. Shtolzberg appeared in 17 games last winter, scoring 25 points across 98 minutes of action. He told a scouting website that he wants to be remembered as “an example for my community,” since there are so few Jewish basketball players in the pro ranks.
Danny Wolf drives during a game against the Brown Bears at the Pizzitola Sports Center in Providence, R.I., March 4, 2023. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Danny Wolf, Yale
Likely the tallest Jewish college basketball player, the 7-foot Wolf also made JTA’s list of student athletes to watch this year for his oversized potential. He helped Team Israel win silver at the 2023 FIBA U20 European Championships this summer, averaging 17.7 points and a tournament-best 12 rebounds per game.
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The post 20 Jewish men’s and women’s college basketball players to watch in 2023-24 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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