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

(JTA) — When it comes to Jews and sports, baseball often reigns supreme — both in terms of Jewish fan interest and the number of high-profile Jewish professional players.

But as some Jewish sports fans may recognize, the NHL has long had a large roster of Jewish players that seems to grow each year.

With the latest hockey season underway, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has collected all the Jewish hockey players to watch this season.

Read on for their stories, in alphabetical order, plus those of the free agents and minor leaguers who could see playing time this year.

André Burakovsky, Seattle Kraken left winger

André Burakovsky, who is of Russian-Jewish descent, is in his 10th NHL season and his second with Seattle. Burakovsky, 28, was born in Austria and has represented Sweden on its national team. His father, Robert Burakovsky, briefly played in the NHL in 1993-1994. The younger Burakovsky enjoyed his best season in 2021-2022 with Colorado, where he racked up 61 points on his way to his second NHL Stanley Cup championship.

Jakob Chychrun, Ottawa Senators defenseman

Jakob Chychrun also hails from a hockey family — his father played eight seasons in the NHL and his uncle is Chicago Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson. The 25-year-old Boca Raton native is in his eighth season in the league and his first full season with the Ottawa Senators, who traded for him in March. Chychrun scored nine goals with a career-high 24 assists last season, despite missing considerable time with an injury. The former No. 16 overall pick was born to a Jewish mother and has Ukrainian heritage. He told NHL.com that he grew up celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas.

Adam Fox, New York Rangers defenseman

Adam Fox during a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 14, 2023. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)

At just 25, Fox is already an alternate captain for the Rangers, after earning two All-Star team selections and the 2021 Norris Trophy for the league’s best defender in his first four seasons. Fox grew up in Long Island’s Jewish community, where he attended a Conservative synagogue and had a hockey-themed bar mitzvah. “There are a lot Jewish residents on Long Island, so it’s cool for me to represent that community,” Fox told JTA last year. “And, you know, there’s not many Jewish athletes. So to be one of the few and have people who come from where I come from look up to me… I think it’s definitely pretty special.”

Cole Guttman, Chicago Blackhawks center

After a solid collegiate career with the University of Denver, where he captained his team to the 2022 NCAA Championship, Cole Guttman is in his first full season in the NHL. The 24-year-old, whose family hails from Hungary and moved to Canada in 1951 from ​​a German displaced persons camp, made his debut last season, appearing in 14 games for the Chicago Blackhawks. Guttman missed the majority of last season after undergoing shoulder surgery in March. Guttman told NHL.com he’s ready for a comeback season.

Jack Hughes, New Jersey Devils center

Jack Hughes in action against the Florida Panthers during a game at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, Oct. 16, 2023. (Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

At 22 years old, Jack Hughes is already one of the NHL’s best players. The No. 1 pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, Hughes is a two-time NHL All-Star, and last season he set a Devils franchise record with 99 points. Hughes was also the runner-up for the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, an award recognizing the player exhibiting the best “sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.” Hughes had a bar mitzvah and celebrated Passover growing up with his hockey dynasty family. Hughes’ mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, is Jewish and was herself an accomplished hockey player.

Luke Hughes, New Jersey Devils defenseman

Luke Hughes, the youngest Hughes brother, made his debut toward the end of last season, appearing in two regular season games with the Devils and three postseason games. Hughes, 20, was a star player at the University of Michigan, where he set several program records. He was selected fourth overall in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.

Quinn Hughes, Vancouver Canucks defenseman 

The eldest of the Hughes brothers, Quinn Hughes is a Canucks captain in his sixth season with the team. The 24-year-old also enjoyed a standout collegiate career at Michigan and was drafted by Vancouver with the seventh overall pick in 2018 — though he would return to Michigan for one more year. Hughes has earned at least 60 assists each of the past two seasons, and last month he was named the 15th captain in team history, making him the youngest current captain in the NHL.

Zach Hyman, Edmonton Oilers left winger

Zach Hyman during a game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Oct. 11, 2023.(Ethan Cairns/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

On the ice, Zach Hyman scored a career-best 36 goals and tallied a whopping 47 assists last season. Off the ice, he is among the more vocal Jewish athletes in all of professional sports. The Toronto native attended a Jewish high school, represented Canada in the 2013 Maccabiah Games and has said he wears No. 18 because of its symbolic meaning in Judaism. “I’m Jewish, and in Judaism, 18 is a lucky number; it’s chai, which means ‘life’ in Hebrew,” he told The Athletic in 2021. Hyman has also been involved in the Jewish community in Edmonton, where he lit a giant menorah at a local Hanukkah event in 2021, and has spoken out against antisemitism.

Luke Kunin, San Jose Sharks center

Luke Kunin is in his second season with the San Jose Sharks, for whom he appeared in only 31 games last season before tearing his ACL. Kunin, 25, had played in all 82 games the previous year with Nashville, scoring 13 goals with nine assists. He’s a Missouri native.

Devon Levi, Buffalo Sabres goaltender

Devon Levi tends goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning during an NHL game at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, Oct. 17, 2023. (Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)

Already a star goalie for Team Canada, Devon Levi is in his first full season in the NHL. The 21-year-old is a native of the Montreal suburb Dollard-des-Ormeaux, which has a sizable Jewish population, and he attended a Modern Orthodox school. Levi won the Mike Richter Award for the best goalie in NCAA men’s Division I hockey the past two years, becoming the first player to win the award multiple times. After his stellar career at Northeastern University, Levi debuted for Buffalo last season, appearing in seven games.

Jake Walman, Detroit Red Wings defenseman

Jake Walman is in his fifth season in the NHL and his third with Detroit. In 63 games for the Red Wings last year, the Toronto native tallied 18 points (nine goals and nine assists), punctuated by a game-winning goal in overtime that sealed a 5-4 comeback victory for Detroit in a game in which the team trailed 4-0. The 27-year-old is Jewish and has dual American-Canadian citizenship.

Jason Zucker, Arizona Coyotes left winger

Jason Zucker, left, skates with the puck against Erik Gustafsson of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 16, 2023. (Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images)

Now in his 13th year in the league and his first in Arizona, Jason Zucker is one of the more experienced Jewish players in the NHL. The 31-year-old California native enjoyed a bounceback season last year with the Pittsburgh Penguins, scoring 27 goals with 21 assists. It was his best offensive output since the 2018-2019 season, when he also won the league’s King Clancy Memorial Trophy recognizing his humanitarian efforts for raising $1 million for a Minnesota children’s hospital. Zucker has a Hebrew tattoo on his left forearm and though he never had a bar mitzvah, he celebrated Jewish holidays with his family, telling the Penguins website that he “would do virtual menorah lighting with my family back while I was out of town playing juniors or college.”

Other players to keep an eye on

There are a number of Jewish players currently on minor league rosters of NHL teams. Some of them already have NHL experience, and all of them have a chance to see playing time this season.

Andrew Cristall is an 18-year-old drafted by Washington in 2023. He said “It definitely means a lot” to be the lone Jewish draftee of his class.
Jason Demers is a 35-year-old Olympian with 700 career games in the NHL across 13 years and five teams. He’s currently a free agent.
Mark Friedman is a 27-year-old defender who was traded this week from the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Vancouver Canucks. Friedman has 65 games of NHL experience across five seasons.
Josh Ho-Sang is a 27-year-old Olympian with 53 games of NHL experience who is currently a free agent. Ho-Sang is the son of a Jamaican father of Chinese and African descent and a Chilean mother of Russian-Jewish and Swedish heritage. He has said he “always celebrated the Jewish holidays like Hanukkah and the High Holidays with family and friends.”
Yaniv Perets is a 23-year-old goalie playing for a minor-league affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Chase Priskie is a 27-year-old defenseman with the Washington Capitals. Priskie made his NHL debut for his hometown Florida Panthers in 2021 and grew up in a Jewish home.
Max Sasson is a 23-year-old center also playing for the Canucks’ minor-league affiliate.
Ozzy Wiesblatt is a 21-year-old right winger playing for the San Jose Sharks’ minor-league affiliate.

In the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the lone Jewish player is goaltender Aerin Frankel, 24, who plays for Boston and for USA Hockey.


The post All the Jewish NHL 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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