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After 47 years and 900 wins, this Jewish basketball coach is a legend at his Catholic college
BROOKLINE, Mass. (JTA) — Andy Yosinoff departs his prayer service at Congregation Kehillath Israel shortly after 8 a.m. every Thursday during the college basketball season, navigating across the Boston city line.
For nearly 50 years, the Reform Jew has commuted to what’s become his life’s calling: coaching the women’s basketball team at a small private Catholic college.
Yosinoff, 76, is the second-longest tenured employee at Emmanuel College (a philosophy professor has been there longer) and one of the school’s pillars.
“Emmanuel’s been my life,” Yosinoff told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of his 47 years at the school. “I wouldn’t be where I am if I wasn’t at Emmanuel. They allow me to be Andy Yosinoff, who doesn’t always do things in the most conventional ways.”
The all-time winningest Jewish college basketball coach at any level for both men and women with 898 wins, Yosinoff is also the country’s longest-tenured active college basketball coach, according to the NCAA. His Saints have garnered 21 NCAA tournament appearances and 18 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) championships in his nearly five decades leading the Division III program. In addition to heading the women’s hoops program, Yosinoff served as the director of athletics at Emmanuel for 17 years; he is now an associate athletic director and the department’s business manager and athletic alumni development liaison.
“Even as a practicing Jewish person, Andy really embodies the mission of Emmanuel College,” said Beth Ross, the college’s president. “I can’t think of a better advocate or somebody who is more passionate or committed to developing student scholar-athletes.”
Yosinoff grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the only child of Freda and Louis Yosinoff. His family kept a kosher home and attended the Conservative Temple Emanu-el in Providence, where he later had his bar mitzvah. He still attends services there when he can, usually for the High Holidays.
That Yosinoff ended up a basketball coach is a surprise on its own. While he played varsity high school hoops “not great, pretty good,” he said, tennis was Yosinoff’s better court sport. Playing Division I tennis at the University of Rhode Island as the school’s first scholarship tennis athlete, Yosinoff held the top singles position on the men’s tennis team all four years and is in the school’s athletic hall of fame.
While at URI, he caught the coaching bug, pioneering the school’s intramural basketball team. Yosinoff continued coaching a YMCA team while obtaining his master’s at Miami University (Ohio) and developed the defensive schemes his teams still use today. He moved to Boston soon after, teaching physical education in Boston public schools and coaching basketball within the system.
One day, an advertisement in the Boston Globe caught his eye: a tennis coaching job at Emmanuel, then a women’s school.
Yosinoff applied immediately, but after meeting with the school’s part-time athletic director, he realized he couldn’t take the role because the hours overlapped with his teaching job. Yosinoff quickly pivoted, asking if Emmanuel had a basketball coach.
The answer?
“No.”
“You do now,” he responded.
Yosinoff’s Saints found success not long after his arrival in 1977, 10 years before the introduction of the 3-point line, and they never looked back. Their best season to date came midway through his career in 2001, when Emmanuel reached the NCAA Final Four, becoming the first Boston school to do so at any division, men or women. He’s the NCAA Division III record holder for 20-plus victory seasons, with 27, and one of 10 NCAA women’s basketball coaches across all levels to reach 900 wins. Yosinoff coached the Saints to 72- and 68-game regular-season conference winning streaks from 2000-2006 and 2010-2016. He won the 2012 Jewish Coaches Association’s Red Auerbach National Coach of the Year Award and was a finalist a decade later. Yosinoff has also coached in the Maccabiah Games in Israel. The list of accolades goes on.
To boot, Yosinoff also coached women’s tennis at Emmanuel from 1980-1987. He became Emmanuel’s athletic director in 1986, while continuing to teach in the public schools and coaching women’s basketball and tennis. He retired from teaching in 2007 and has been full-time at Emmanuel since.
Perhaps Yosinoff’s most important accomplishment, though, came as an assist, when he helped then-freshman Lesa Dennis petition the NCAA to allow the devout Muslim to wear sweatpants and a scarf to cover her head during games in order to adhere to religious customs in the mid-1980s. Recently, Jamad Fiin, a 2022 graduate, rose to influencer status and viral fame for her empowering content as a female Muslim college basketball player.
Now, Lesa Dennis-Mahamed is a Roxbury, Massachusetts-based optometrist. She described Yosinoff as “an asset to the human race.”
“He is an advocate,” Dennis-Mahamed said. “Even though there can be some stress between Muslims and Jews, Andy doesn’t see that. He sees people as human. Andy looks beyond race, color, religion or even gender, and he sees the person for who they are.”
Yosinoff’s father Louis, who attended synagogue daily for 25 years, worked as a guidance counselor in Providence’s City Central High School, teaching his son about the importance of diversity and inclusion. Louis had started a scholarship fund at Emmanuel in honor of his wife, who died of muscular dystrophy at 65 in 1986.
Last year, Andy Yosinoff redid the gym’s bleachers in honor of his father, who died in 2017 at age 99 and was known as “Papa Yosinoff” to the team. A yellow seat in the middle seat of the first row honors Louis Yosinoff. The others are blue.
The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, the school’s founding order, emphasize the importance of equity, too, he said.
“It’s about giving inner-city kids opportunities to go to school. It’s essential for me, and was for my father back in the day,” Yosinoff said. “I’m more proud of how diverse our teams have been than all the wins in the world.”
As a dogged recruiter, Yosinoff can be seen in action all over northern New England. Joe Walsh, now the GNAC’s commissioner, got the Yosinoff pitch on a Friday evening in the summer of 1972 while shooting around in Allston’s Ringer Park by himself. Yosinoff approached then-15-year-old Walsh.
“I’m the coach of the Jewish Community Center basketball team,” and I need some players, Yosinoff told Walsh.
“I’m not Jewish,” Walsh said.
“I don’t care,” Yosinoff responded.
“The starting 5 was four Irish kids and one Jewish kid,” Walsh said. “You don’t get 900 wins as a college coach if you can’t recruit.”
Ross, Emmanuel’s president, remembers first meeting Yosinoff 23 years ago on the campus quad, located in the heart of Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, forming an instant friendship because of Yosinoff’s infectious energy.
“There isn’t a person on campus that doesn’t know Andy,” she said.
Ross credited Yosinoff for fostering an inclusive environment in his program while also holding his players to high standards, evidenced by their strong grade point average and Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Team academic honors.
Kiera Eubanks, a current senior captain, remembers Yosinoff’s two-part recruiting promise as follows: First, if she joined the program, she’d win a championship. Second, he would do everything he could to help her find professional opportunities after college.
“He’s constantly checking up on us, also making sure that we’re succeeding off the court, and I certainly have felt supported during my four years here,” said Eubanks, a sociology major. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. He truly has made my college experience that much greater, and he truly cares about us.”
Meghan Kirwan, a 2012 graduate, joined Yosinoff’s staff as an assistant two years after graduating. She’s now in her ninth season in the part-time role.
“As a player I enjoyed it so much, so when he was looking for another assistant coach there was no one I’d rather coach under,” said Kirwan, who also works in the nearby Somerville Public Schools as a reading specialist. “He takes it very seriously and wants to win, but there’s such a free and fun lightness about him. Year after year I’m still here, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Already a member of the New England Basketball and Great Northeast Athletic Conference halls of fame, Yosinoff has since November 2016 had his name inscribed on the school’s basketball court — “maybe the only Jewish coach with his name on a Catholic college floor,” he said.
He eyes three more accomplishments: a national championship, a place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (which includes NBA stars) and 1000 career wins, in that order.
With a list that like, he clearly is showing no signs of slowing down.
“If I feel like I do today, which is the same energy as it was 45 years ago, and feel like I’m doing a good job helping my players get better, I can’t give you an age” to retire, Yosinoff said. “If I didn’t love the place, I’d be like a normal person and retired.”
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The post After 47 years and 900 wins, this Jewish basketball coach is a legend at his Catholic college appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli Consulate Officials Targeted in Boston With Flyers as Antisemitic Crime Wave Continues
A vigil for Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, both Israeli embassy staffers who were murdered by an anti-Israel activist, in Washington DC on May 22, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Anti-Israel activists in Boston targeted Israeli consulate staff this week by distributing a threatening flyer which included their pictures and names, potentially endangering them amid a recent surge in antisemitic violence across the US.
“They spread war into Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran,” the flyer said, according to multiple reports. “The people pictured above and other staff at the consulate work for the Israeli government. They advocate for laws to censor us. Their education initiatives obscure and cover up their crimes. Their economic missions fund genocide.”
It added, “Don’t work with them. Don’t help them. Tell them to leave Boston.”
The Consulate General of Israel to New England on Wednesday acknowledged the severity of the incident, noting that its connection to recent events is not lost on anyone.
“The consulate immediately notified local law enforcement agencies and is grateful for their swift response and continued cooperation, as well as their commitment to deepening security efforts around this matter,” it said in a statement. “This deplorable act is especially concerning in light of recent horrific incidents where anti-Israel incitement has escalated into antisemitism, hate crimes, and acts of violence and terror, including right here in our region.”
Only last month, two Israeli diplomats, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26 — a couple about to become engaged — were murdered as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young professionals and diplomatic staff hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old left-wing and anti-Israel activist from Chicago, was later charged in US federal court with murdering the embassy aides. According to witnesses and federal agents, he chanted, “Free, Free Palestine” — a war cry that has been a staple of the pro-Hamas movement.
An affidavit filed by federal authorities in support of the criminal complaint charging Rodriguez revealed that he also said at the scene of the shooting, “I did it for Palestine; I did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally with Molotov cocktails and a “makeshift” flamethrower in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people ranging in age from 25 to 88. Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was charged with attempted murder and a slate of other crimes. Prosecutors say he yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack. The suspect also told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people,” according to court documents.
In Boston this week, one of the targeted officials, Consul General Benjamin Sharoni, issued a statement, saying that the flyer “is bullying, it is an intimidation, and a call to hostile action.” Meanwhile, the New England office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said “it is deeply troubling in the current climate, where anti-Israel incitement has directly led to the brutal murder of two Israeli embassy staff members.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the American Jewish community has been battered by antisemitic hate incidents throughout the country, forcing law enforcement to stay hot on the trails of those who perpetrate them amid a wave of recent outrages.
On Tuesday, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland announced that it has charged Florida native Jackson Traylor, 26, with sending baleful antisemitic messages which alluded to Nazism and the Holocaust. If convicted of the crimes, he could spend up to two years in federal prison.
“Go burn in an oven like your ancestors,” Traylor allegedly texted his victim. “Burn in a god damn oven … Stupid Jew … Hey, Jew, been a while since we spoke. Let me burn you alive like your ancestors Hail Hitler.”
Earlier this month, an antisemitic letter threatening violence was mailed to a resident of the Highland Park suburb in Chicago. So severe were its contents that the FBI and the Illinois Terrorism and Intelligence Center were called to the scene to establish that there was no imminent danger, according to local news outlets. Later, the local government shuttered all religious institutions as a precautionary measure.
In New York City, where antisemitic hate crimes have been increasing year over year and leading the nation in the statistical category, an elderly man struck a Jewish woman with his cane after shouting “Stupid b—tch. Go back to your country” — as reported by the New York Post. He became even more animated after the helpless woman, who was alone on a subway platform, began recording the encounter with her smartphone. The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) Crimestoppers division has asked the public to come forward if they recognize the man, whose visage was captured in crystal clear screenshots pulled from footage of the attack.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
Chilling data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April revealed that antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents last year — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“This horrifying level of antisemitism should never be accepted and yet, as our data shows, it has become a persistent and grim reality for American Jewish communities,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Jewish Americans continue to be harassed, assaulted, and targeted for who they are on a daily basis and everywhere they go. But let’s be clear: we will remain proud of our Jewish culture, religion, and identities, and we will not be intimidated by bigots.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Israeli Consulate Officials Targeted in Boston With Flyers as Antisemitic Crime Wave Continues first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Jewish Lawmaker Says He Was ‘Run Off the Road’ by Pro-Palestinian Activist
US Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) says in a video posted to social media that a pro-Palestinian activist ran him off the road. Photo: Screenshot
US Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) posted a video on X/Twitter on Friday morning saying that he was physically threatened by a pro-Palestinian activist.
Miller, who is Jewish, alleged that while driving to work, the activist forced his car off the road to show him a Palestinian flag and called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Miller added that the assailant threatened the lives of himself and his family.
“This morning, as I was driving to work, some unhinged, deranged man decided to lay on his horn and run me off the road when he couldn’t get my attention. Not to mention, ‘death to Israel,’ ‘death to me,’ that he wanted to kill me and my family,” Miller said.
The representative claimed that he obtained the identity of the suspect and that he will be pursuing legal action against him.
The deranged hatred in this country has gotten out of control. Today I was run off the road in Rocky River, and the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off. I have filed a police report with Capitol Police and… pic.twitter.com/H6JnupcRIA
— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) June 19, 2025
Miller, who represents the 7th Congressional District of Ohio, has positioned himself as one of Congress’s most outspoken pro‑Israel advocates. Since taking office in January 2023, he has sponsored multiple resolutions in support of Israel, including a July 2023 measure declaring it “not a racist or apartheid state.” He also co‑sponsored the Antisemitism Awareness Act, aligning US education policy with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.
Miller has also been a vocal supporter of substantial US aid to Israel, backing the $26 billion supplemental package in 2024 that he helped guide through the House, and has denounced any Republican measures that tied Israel aid to US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cuts as “disgusting.” His stance extends to public commentary, where he has condemned Palestinian flag displays by Democrats and framed constraints on Israel’s military response to Iran and its terrorist proxy network as misguided.
In the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, pro-Palestinian activists have engaged in a great deal of violence in Ohio. According to Anti‑Defamation League (ADL) reporting, the Buckeye State has experienced a near-quadrupling of antisemitic hate crime cases — from 61 in 2022 to 237 in 2023. Notable incidents include vandalism at Ohio State University‘s Hillel Center, swastika carvings on trees in New Albany, and reported assaults on Jewish students. These incidents have prompted new state legislation to define antisemitism under the IHRA framework and expand ethnic-intimidation charges.
The post US Jewish Lawmaker Says He Was ‘Run Off the Road’ by Pro-Palestinian Activist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Argentina’s Milei Brands Iran an ‘Enemy,’ Reaffirms Unwavering Support for Israel Amid Escalating Conflict
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during a Plenum session of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, in Jerusalem, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Argentine President Javier Milei has branded Iran “an enemy” of his country, reaffirming Argentina’s support for Israel amid its ongoing conflict with the Islamist regime in Tehran.
On Thursday, Milei — who has broken with decades of Argentine foreign policy to firmly align with Israel and the United States — condemned Iran’s attacks on the Jewish state.
“Iran is an enemy of Argentina,” the South American leader said during a new interview on the La Nación+ news channel.
| Milei recordó los atentados a la AMIA y a la Embajada de Israel y afirmó que Irán es un enemigo de la Argentina: “114 muertos. Es un enemigo de Argentina. Cristina va a tener que dar explicaciones a la Justicia por el Memorándum con Irán, y no sé si constituye traición a… pic.twitter.com/MKUgMmyr9p
— La Derecha Diario (@laderechadiario) June 20, 2025
According to local media, Milei spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to express his “support and solidarity” as the war continues to escalate.
In a statement issued last week, the Argentine leader denounced “the vile attack perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the State of Israel, through the mass launch of missiles and drones directed at civilian populations.”
He also said that Israel is “saving Western civilization” and accused Iran of trying to destroy the country.
During his interview on Thursday, Milei held Tehran responsible for two terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires: the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center.
The latter was the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history, in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.
Earlier this year, the lead prosecutor in the 1994 AMIA bombing case petitioned Argentina’s federal court to issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over his alleged involvement in the deadly terrorist attack. Milei has also activated Interpol red notices in connection with the case.
In the same interview, Milei suggested that former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — may have committed treason by signing the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iranian authorities, which was presented as a cooperation agreement to investigate the AMIA bombing.
“Cristina is going to have to give explanations to the courts about the memorandum with Iran. I don’t know if it constitutes treason, but they planted two bombs in Argentina. That’s key,” the Argentine leader said.
In 2006, former prosecutor Alberto Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the 1994 terrorist attack and Iran’s chief proxy, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused Kirchner of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in exchange for Iranian oil, with the alleged cover-up reportedly formalized through their MoU.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
During his latest interview, Milei also noted that his administration has officially designated Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations — making Argentina the first Latin American country to do so, with Paraguay joining the effort in April.
Since taking office over a year ago, Milei has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters, strengthening bilateral relations to unprecedented levels.
This month, during his 10-day international tour, Milei was awarded the $1 million Genesis Prize in Jerusalem in recognition of his unwavering support for Israel and commitment to Jewish values.
During his three-day visit to the Jewish state, Milei announced that Argentina will move its embassy to Jerusalem next year, joining the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Paraguay, and Papua New Guinea in doing so and recognizing the city as Israel’s capital.
The Argentine leader also signed a “Memorandum of Understanding for Democracy and Freedom” with Netanyahu to strengthen cooperation against terrorism and antisemitism.
The post Argentina’s Milei Brands Iran an ‘Enemy,’ Reaffirms Unwavering Support for Israel Amid Escalating Conflict first appeared on Algemeiner.com.