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After losing friends on Oct. 7, this Israeli NCAA basketball player looks for an escape on the court
(JTA) — Romi Levy glides towards the basket, her sole focus on finishing at the net in the University of South Florida’s practice facility. Moments later, during a break in practice, she checks her phone, hoping not to see any alerts about rocket alarms in her hometown of Herzliya, Israel.
More than 6,000 miles from home at a U.S. university, Levy always thought about Israel often. But things changed on Oct. 7, when some of her high school friends were killed during Hamas’ terror attack on the Re’im music festival. Her cousin, one year younger and like “a little brother,” is on the front lines of the war.
“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. “I’m just trying to do my best and make sure that everybody at home is OK and try to be there and support them.”
Basketball is an escape. Levy’s time with the team, about six hours per day at the team’s practice facility, gets her away from watching the news “nonstop.”
“I just love basketball so much that when I get on the court I just have fun,” Levy said. “I know that if something were to happen my phone is right there, so I don’t need to think about it when I play basketball.”
She was already looking to turn her college career around on the court this year. This past March, after an injury-plagued three years at Auburn University, Levy put her name in the NCAA transfer portal. More than 40 Division I women’s college basketball programs reached out, illustrating the 6-foot-3 wing player’s potential.
“New life, New team, New position. Starting it all over!” she captioned an Instagram post after transferring to USF.
Born and raised Jewish, Levy is a third-generation standout Israeli athlete. Her grandmother, Tamara Metal Schumacher, was the first female Israeli Olympian, competing in the 1952 Games in the high jump and long jump. She also played for the country’s national basketball team, as did her mother. Levy’s “23” tattoo on her arm honors her grandmother’s Olympic number.
Levy is also a dual Israel-American citizen. Her father, Alon, a former professional soccer player and Ironman triathlete, lived in Los Angeles for a decade and became an American citizen. He and Romi lived in Boca Raton, Florida, during her freshman year of high school, where she attended Olympic Heights Community High School. They moved back to Israel at the end of that school year.
Between graduating from Hof Hasharon High School and beginning college, Levy completed Israel’s mandatory two-year national service requirement. During her service, spent at her parents’ rehabilitation center working with Israel Defense Force veterans, Levy also represented the Israeli national team at the U18 Women’s European Championships, leading the team to a bronze medal.
She enrolled at Auburn in 2020 on the recommendation of Israeli three-time Olympic swimmer Yoav Bruck, a 1994 Auburn graduate and friend of her parents. Levy posted her best season to date as a freshman, averaging 5.4 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.4 steals per game en route to SEC All-Freshman Team honors.
She then missed her sophomore season due to an ACL tear suffered in her left knee and injured her meniscus in both knees during a preseason practice. She made a strong return, posting 6.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game in 23 appearances for Auburn last season, but Levy played through pain. Unable to straighten her leg all the way, it swelled to the point where she needed it drained and took steroid shots. With Auburn out of any postseason play, Levy sought an MRI. She again underwent season-ending knee surgery in February.
She called Auburn — where she celebrated Jewish holidays with men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl and his family — “a great place for school, but for basketball it wasn’t a good fit for me.” USF boasts a stronger women’s basketball program: While Auburn finished a solid No. 81 out of 361 teams in last year’s NCAA NET Rankings, USF finished No. 39.
Levy likes to play far from the basket on offense. A physical lefty with a deft shooting touch, she flashed 3-point range during her time at Auburn but mainly played with her back to the basket in the post. At USF, she’s transitioning back to her natural position on the wing.
Carsen McFadden, a current member of the Auburn women’s basketball team in Levy’s recruiting class, told JTA she appreciated learning about Jewish and Israeli culture from Levy — such as the fact that Hebrew is written from right to left. McFadden, who called Levy her “best friend,” acknowledged Levy’s efforts to stay positive during a trying time at Auburn, always there to lend a listening ear and a hug.
Outside of basketball, Levy felt comfortable with USF because of its large international student population — more than 50% of the undergraduate population in the fall of 2021, according to the school. At USF, she has also found a larger Jewish community, attending events at the school’s Hillel center and Chabad house and in the greater Tampa community, as her busy schedule permits. She does her best to celebrate all of the Jewish holidays stateside but longs for extended family’s Friday night Shabbat dinners.
Levy struggled with injury issues at Auburn and is looking for a clean start at the University of South Florida. (South Florida Athletics)
“We’d do the Kiddush and all that,” Levy said. “Seeing everyone together is something I miss. Friday nights aren’t as special here as they are in Israel.”
Levy’s parents still live in Israel, roughly an hour by car from the Gaza Strip. Alon Levy traveled from Israel to Tampa this week to visit his daughter and attend her first game at USF, a 76-61 win over UT Arlington in which Romi scored 10 points across 21 minutes of action. Alon said he and his wife Liat communicate with Romi and their older daughter, Sean, a New York City-based model, daily.
“I can’t explain what we are feeling, but we are in shock, all of Israel is for what happened,” Alon said. “I think almost everybody in Israel has someone that something happened to. There are no words to explain it.”
He told Romi not to look at the news too much and try to focus on her new beginnings in Florida.
“I’m coming now, also, to give her a hug and see how she feels,” he said. “From a distance, you never know exactly how your children are feeling. They always say they are OK. But she’s OK. She’s OK.”
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The post After losing friends on Oct. 7, this Israeli NCAA basketball player looks for an escape on the court appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says
An Israeli flag flies in Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as seen from Metula, northern Israel, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the US, and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel‘s military and the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign in southern Lebanon that left Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
The post Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The United Nations Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday over Iran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade, diplomats said on Monday.
The meeting was requested by six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain, and the US.
They also want the council to discuss Iran’s obligation to provide the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – with “the information necessary to clarify outstanding issues related to undeclared nuclear material detected at multiple locations in Iran,” diplomats said.
Iran’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran reached a deal in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia, and China – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Washington quit the agreement in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as US president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments.
Britain, France, and Germany have told the UN Security Council that they are ready – if needed – to trigger a so-called snap back of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 this year when the 2015 UN resolution on the deal expires. US President Donald Trump has directed his UN envoy to work with allies to snap back international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.
The post UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says
A man inspects a damaged car in Latakia, after hundreds were reportedly killed in some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s new Islamist rulers, Syria, March 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Haidar Mustafa
Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
Pressure has been growing on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the majority of the population were members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children, and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using a French term for those incapable of fighting.
So far, the UN human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing. Of those, 90 were men; 18 were women; and three were children, he added.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis,” Al-Kheetan told reporters. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he said, citing testimonies from survivors.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed an announcement by Syria’s Islamist-led government to create an accountability committee and called for those investigations to be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial, the spokesperson added.
The post Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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