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All the Jewish NFL players to watch in the 2023-2024 season

(JTA) — As the calendar turns to September, many Jews eagerly await an annual fall tradition that signals a new beginning: Week 1 of the NFL season.

This year, the season begins on Sept. 7, just about 10 days before Rosh Hashanah. Read on for our guide to all the Jewish players (listed alphabetically) and storylines to watch — plus a few free agents who could get another chance.

Jake Curhan, Seattle Seahawks offensive tackle

Jake Curhan, center, and Tyler Mabry celebrate after a touchdown at Lumen Field in Seattle, Jan. 1, 2023. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Curhan, 25, appeared in four games for the Seahawks in 2022, a step back from his 15 games and five starts during his rookie season the prior year. The 6-foot-1, 315-pound lineman who grew up attending Jewish summer camp is expected to take on a similar backup role this season. During his successful collegiate career with the California Golden Bears at the University of California, Berkeley, he took on the nickname “Bear Jew.”

A.J. Dillon, Green Bay Packers running back

A.J. Dillon warms up before a preseason game against the New England Patriots at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., Aug. 19, 2023. (John Fisher/Getty Images)

After a record-setting career at Boston College, Dillon enters his fourth season with the Green Bay Packers. Dillon, the team’s second-string running back, appeared in all 17 games last season, wracking up 770 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns, a career high. Dillon, 25, spoke at the BBYO Jewish teen movement’s convention last year, where he shared his experience as a Jew of color and joked about missing Hebrew school for football practice as a kid.

Michael Dunn, Cleveland Browns offensive lineman

Michael Dunn, right, during a preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Aug. 26, 2023. (David Eulitt/Getty Images)

The 2023 season is already off to a seesaw start for Dunn, who was re-signed by the Browns on Wednesday, just one day after they had reportedly released him. The 29-year-old appeared in Cleveland’s first eight games last year, including two starts, before a back injury derailed his season.

Greg Joseph, Minnesota Vikings kicker

Greg Joseph celebrates with teammates after kicking a game-winning field goal against the New York Giants at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Dec. 24, 2022. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Joseph is beginning his third straight season as the Vikings’ primary kicker. The South African-born Jewish day school grad has been involved with the Jewish communities of each city in which he has played during his four years in the NFL. The 29-year-old has become known for his clutch game-winning field goals, including two in a row that each made history last season.

The free agents who hope to return

Anthony Firkser during New England Patriots minicamp at the Patriots Practice Facility at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., June 13, 2023. (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Anthony Firkser (tight end): Despite appearing in at least 11 games in each of his five NFL seasons, Firsker, 28, enters this season without a roster spot. Firkser — who had a bar mitzvah growing up in New Jersey and spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about his love of latkes — was cut by the New England Patriots this week as the deadline loomed for teams to finalize their 53-man rosters. The Harvard alum has five career touchdowns and could get a shot as another team’s second- or third-string tight end.

Josh Rosen (quarterback): Rosen — who had a bar mitzvah, was a standout at UCLA and was once seen as a lock to be the first Jewish star QB in several decades — has struggled to find his footing in the NFL. The 10th overall pick in the 2018 draft, Rosen has more interceptions (21) than touchdowns (12) in his 24 career games. Rosen, 26, last appeared in a game with the Atlanta Falcons in 2021, and spent last season on the Browns’ and Vikings’ practice squads.

Sam Sloman (kicker): After making 10 field goals in his rookie 2020 season, the Georgia native has bounced around practice squads without seeing game action. Sloman, 25, played for the Vegas Vipers in the XFL in their 2023 season. Sloman took on the nickname “Kosher Cannon” when he played at Miami University in Ohio.

Other Jewish storylines

Josh Harris addresses the media at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., Jan. 12, 2020. (Andy Marlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

Off the field, the biggest Jewish storyline of the 2023-2024 NFL season is new Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris, who purchased the team from embattled Jewish owner Dan Snyder earlier this year for a record $6.05 billion. Snyder is under multiple investigations over sexual harassment and toxic workplace culture allegations. In July, Harris said buying his hometown NFL team was “bashert,” using the Yiddish word for fate.

In the broadcast booth, a number of Jewish play-by-play announcers and analysts will entertain fans on various networks. Here are a few of the more well-known figures in the booth and in the studio: Kenny Albert (Fox Sports), Chris Berman (ESPN), Ian Eagle (CBS), Andrea Kremer (Amazon Prime), Steve Levy (ESPN), Al Michaels (Amazon Prime) and Tracy Wolfson (CBS). Plus, former Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman recently joined Fox Sports’ “Fox NFL Kickoff” program, the network’s signature pre-game show.


The post All the Jewish NFL players to watch in the 2023-2024 season appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”

He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.

Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.

But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.

He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”

He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.

He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.

He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.

He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”

Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.

“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.

SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY

Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.

Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.

Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.

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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.

A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.

Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.

On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.

Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.

WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”

“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.

“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.

JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel

Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.

While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.

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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot

Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.

“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”

Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.

“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.

Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.

She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.

The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”

Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”

The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.

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