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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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Iran Accused of Targeting Jews at Home and Abroad as 14 Nations Condemn Assassination Plots

People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Britain, the United States, France, and 11 other allies issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a rise in Iranian assassination and kidnapping plots in the West, as a new report warned Tehran has been intensifying efforts to target Jewish communities abroad.
On Tuesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report detailing Iran’s systematic violations of religious freedom, both domestically and through operations targeting individuals abroad.
Within Iran, despite officially recognizing Judaism, the Islamist government also “publicly demonizes Jews as enemies of Islam, denies and distorts the history of the Holocaust, [and] surveils Jewish houses of worship,” the report said.
By promoting such antisemitic views and permitting assaults on Jewish sacred sites throughout the country, “authorities have nurtured a hostile environment in which Iranian Jews feel increasingly threatened.”
According to the report, Iran is also “directly engaging criminal networks abroad to carry out attacks against Jewish targets and make Jews in Europe unsafe,” especially in the aftermath of the recent 12-day war with Israel.
The study revealed that the Iranian regime continues to promote and incite antisemitism abroad — through criminal networks, social media, and online platforms — and has actively recruited gangs across Europe “to carry out attacks on Israeli embassies and Jewish sites, including houses of worship, memorial centers, restaurants, and community centers.”
On Thursday, Western allies condemned a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots by Iranian intelligence services targeting individuals across Western countries, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt these illegal activities.
“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the joint statement read.
The new report and joint statement came as Iran continued to defy international demands regarding its nuclear program, facing mounting pressure and new US economic sanctions aimed at compelling a return to nuclear talks.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that “the road to negotiation is narrow” in the wake of the recent conflict with Israel and the United States.
Araghchi also insisted that Washington must agree to compensate Iran for the losses suffered during last month’s conflict if it hopes to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks],” the top Iranian diplomat said. “And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done.”
However, Araghchi also reaffirmed that a deal would be off the table as long as US President Donald Trump continued to demand that Iran commit to zero uranium enrichment.
“We can negotiate, they can present their argument, and we will present our own argument,” Araghchi said. “But with zero enrichment, we don’t have a thing.”
On Wednesday, the United States announced a new round of economic sanctions targeting Iran and entities tied to its oil trade, as part of continued pressure on the Islamic Republic “until Tehran agrees to a deal that promotes regional peace and stability, and abandons all aspirations for nuclear weapons.”
As for negotiations with Europe, Araghchi said during the interview that Tehran would walk away from the talks if European powers continued on their current course, accusing them of failing to honor their obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
“With the Europeans, there is no reason right now to negotiate because they cannot lift sanctions, they cannot do anything,” the Iranian diplomat said. “If they do snapback, that means that this is the end of the road for them.”
Under the terms of the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the 2015 accord — which imposed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for large-scale sanctions relief —international sanctions could be reimposed on Iran, restoring all previous UN economic penalties including those targeting Iran’s oil, banking, and defense sectors, through a “snapback” mechanism that would take about 30 days. France, Britain, and Germany have warned they would reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran if no new agreement is reached by the end of August.
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ADL Files Civil Rights Complaint Against Baltimore City Public Schools, Alleging Rampant Antisemitism

Baltimore City Hall is seen in Baltimore, Maryland, US, May 10, 2019. Photo: Stephanie Keith via Reuters Connect
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has filed a Title VI civil rights complaint against Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), alleging that officials refused to respond to allegations of antisemitism in a manner consistent with US federal law.
“All schools have a fundamental obligation to maintain a learning environment that protect students from discrimination,” ADL vice president of litigation James Pasch said in a statement announcing the action. “On this essential measure of keeping its Jewish students safe from harassment and intimidation, Baltimore City Public Schools have failed.”
Jewish students allegedly experienced relentless bullying in BCPS, where students pantomimed Nazi salutes, treated campuses as a canvas for Nazi-inspired and antisemitic graffiti, and sent text messages threatening that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will be summoned to kill Jewish students the bullies do not like. Teachers behaved even worse than students, the complaint said. At Bard High School, an English teacher performed the Nazi salute three times and later admitted to administrative officials that he did so intentionally to harm “the sole Jewish student” enrolled in his class. Following the incident, he suggested that the student unregister for his class because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be discussed in it.
In every case, according to the complaint, BCPS officials “slow-walked” investigations, deflecting parents’ inquiries into their status with bureaucratic spin even as they denied Jewish students justice. Moreover, the ADL continued, BCPS was first notified of an antisemitism problem on its campuses over a year before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel stoked anti-Jewish hatred. The ADL alleged that the school system’s refusing to take action constituted a textbook example of a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids public schools receiving federal funding to treat students unfairly on the basis of race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry.
“Parents of Jewish students in Baltimore have pleaded repeatedly with BCPPS to take decisive action to stop the harassment of and discrimination against their Jewish children. Their pleas have been ignored,” the complaint said. “Jewish students and parents have filed more than a dozen reports with BCPS. In each case, the schools have labeled these weighty allegations as ‘inconclusive’ and appear to have taken action against the perpetrators.”
The ADL is calling on the school system to take imminent, remedial steps to address antisemitism, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, requiring BCPS officials to undergo trainings on the history of antisemitism and how to fight it, and additions to school curricula which educate students about the history of anti-Jewish bigotry and its harms.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools is receiving increased attention, notably in California, after years of falling under the radar.
In April, a civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition alleged that the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California allows Jewish students to be subjected to unconscionable levels of antisemitic bullying in and outside of the classroom.
The 27-page complaint, filed with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), described a slew of incidents that allegedly fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities set off a wave of anti-Jewish hatred across the US. SCUSD students, the compaint said, graffitied antisemitic hate speech in the bathrooms, vandalized Jewish-themed posters displayed in schools, and distributed stickers which said, “F—k Zionism.” All the while, district officials enabled the behavior by refusing to investigate it and blaming victims who came forward to report their experiences, according to the complaint.
“SCUSD has allowed an egregiously hostile environment to fester for its Jewish and Israeli students in violation of its federal obligations and ethical responsibility to create a safe educational space for all students,” Jenna Statfeld Harris, senior counsel and K-12 specialist at StandWithUs Saidoff Legal, said in a statement at the time. “SCUSD leadership repeatedly disregards the rights of their Jewish and Israeli students. We implore the Office for Civil Rights to step in and uphold the right of these students to an inclusive education free from hostility toward their protected identity.”
In March, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a civil rights complaint which recounted the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on the grounds of the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino, California — being beaten with a stick, told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student admitted that the behavior was motivated by the victim’s being Jewish. Despite receiving several complaints about the treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials allegedly declined to punish her tormentors.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement at the time of the filing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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France, Spain Locked in Diplomatic Dispute Over Removal of French Jewish Teenagers From Flight

A Vueling aircraft approaches landing at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, as Vueling employees prepare for strike, in Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
The forced removal of French Jewish teenagers from a flight in Spain has triggered political outrage in France, after their group leader was handcuffed by Spanish police and a government minister insulted the teens as “Israeli brats.”
French ministers Aurore Bergé and Benjamin Haddad have sharply criticized Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente’s comments and denounced the Spanish government’s overall response to the incident.
Earlier this week, Puente referred to the group of teenagers as “Israeli brats” in a post on X, which he quickly deleted after it went viral and sparked widespread condemnation.
The French ministers issued a strong rebuke of the remarks for “equating French children who were Jewish with Israeli citizens, as if this in any way justified the treatment they were subjected to.”
“At a time when antisemitic acts have been on the rise across Europe since the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel, we call on Vueling [the airline of the flight in question] and the Spanish authorities to fully investigate and clarify the events,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
“We will never accept the normalization of antisemitism. We will always stand with our fellow citizens who suffer from antisemitic hatred, and we will never compromise,” the French officials continued.
Last week, a group of 50 French Jewish students was forcibly removed from a plane in Valencia — reportedly for singing in Hebrew — an incident that resulted in the arrest of their summer camp director, who has accused Spanish law enforcement officers of using excessive force against her.
According to her lawyer, she was left with bruises on her legs, arms, and body after being harshly handcuffed and placed in an arm lock.
“No action justified the disembarkation or the excessive and brutal use of force by the Civil Guard against the young woman, who has just been notified of 15 days of total incapacity to work,” Bergé and Haddad said in a statement.
The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling denied the allegations, insisting the incident was not related to religion but rather that the group was causing a disruption.
In a statement, the airline asserted that the group was removed because of its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.”
After meeting with the group’s counselor on Tuesday, Bergé and Haddad said she denied the official version of events, emphasizing that the crew was hostile from the beginning and that the group’s removal and the Civil Guard’s response were unjustified.
The children, aged 10 to 15, are members of the Kineret Club — a summer camp for Jewish families run by the Matana charitable association — which had just concluded their trip in the coastal resort town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, between Valencia and Barcelona.
According to local reports, the children were singing in Hebrew while boarding the plane to return home, which prompted a hostile response from the crew.
Witnesses reported that the group stopped singing at the crew’s request and complied quietly with boarding instructions, yet airport police still intervened and ordered them to disembark.
Other passengers on the plane who witnessed the incident reported that staff made antisemitic remarks toward the group, including one employee who allegedly referred to Israel as a “terrorist state.”
Last week, amid an ongoing investigation into the incident, French authorities reached out to the CEO of Vueling and the Spanish ambassador to France to assess whether the group was subjected to religious discrimination.