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ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman among International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame’s 11 inductees for 2023
(JTA) — Renowned broadcaster Chris Berman and a German Jew who once said hockey “saved me and my family from the Holocaust” are among the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame’s annual class of inductees.
The 2023 class, shared exclusively with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, includes athletes and sports figures from across sports and around the world — from water polo to fencing, and from the United States to Hungary.
Jed Margolis, president of the hall of fame, told JTA that the 11 inductees were selected from a list of 150 nominees submitted through an open process throughout the past year. A confidential election committee of around 20 athletes, past award winners and sports experts voted on a smaller list of approximately 30 finalists.
“I’m first of all impressed with how there’s no shortage of qualified people — world record holders, people who’ve been at the highest level of their sport and voted into their particular sport hall of fame,” Margolis said. “You would think that we may run out of people, but we’re getting great nominations all the time.”
Margolis added that honoring Jewish athletes can help push back against stereotypes that Jews may not be athletic — most infamously depicted in the 1980 film “Airplane!”
“If you take a look at the numbers of who we represent worldwide, what are we, about 0.02% of the world population, and we’ve won about 0.03% of the Olympic medals. So we’re boxing above our weight, so to speak,” Margolis said.
The 2023 class brings the hall’s total to 448 members since its inauguration in 1981. Shoe designer and Maccabiah athlete and philanthropist Stuart Weitzman is also being honored, as are the recently retired editors of the Jewish Sports Review magazine.
The Hall, which is housed at the Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport in Netanya, Israel, will recognize this year’s honorees at its next induction ceremony in July 2025. Inductees are announced annually, but the ceremony itself is held every four years, when the Maccabiah Games take place.
For now, here’s what you need to know about this year’s honorees.
Rudi Ball, ice hockey
Rudi Ball, center, scores a goal in December 1931. (ullstein bild via Getty Images)
A member of the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame, Ball (1911-1975) was one of two Jewish athletes to represent Germany at the 1936 Winter Olympics, held in Germany six months before the Berlin summer games that drew the world’s attention to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
During Ball’s playing career, which spanned from 1928 to 1952, the right winger won eight German championships and a bronze medal in the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.
When the German Olympic Committee threatened to remove Ball from the team because he was Jewish, his teammates threatened to boycott the Games. According to The Guardian, Ball may have struck a deal with the Nazi regime, agreeing to play for Germany if his parents were allowed out of the country. He later said, “I am the one who owes hockey. It saved me and my family from the Holocaust.”
Chris Berman, broadcaster
ESPN anchor Chris Berman speaks during the Pro Football HOF Centennial Class of 2020 enshrinement ceremonies in Canton, Ohio, Aug. 7, 2021. (MSA/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Award-winning broadcaster Chris Berman has been an anchor for ESPN’s flagship program “SportsCenter” since 1979, a month after it launched. Berman, 67, has primarily been the face of the network’s football coverage, but he has also anchored the U.S. Open golf tournament and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals and has done play-by-play for Major League Baseball games as well.
Nicknamed “Boomer,” Berman was raised in a Jewish family in Irvington, New York. He is a six-time recipient of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association’s National Sportscaster of the Year award, an inductee of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
David Blatt, basketball
David Blatt coaching during a Turkish Airlines Euroleague match between the Olympiacos and Bayern Munich in Athens, Greece, March 19, 2019. (Ayhan Mehmet/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
David Blatt is a decorated former basketball player, coach and executive whose career has included playing at Princeton University; professional basketball leagues in Israel, Italy, Russia, Turkey and Greece; and a stint as head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
Blatt, 63, who was born in Boston and grew up attending a Reform synagogue, moved to Israel in 1981, where he served in the military and played professionally for more than a decade before turning to coaching.
Blatt won championships and coaching accolades throughout his career, and has also played in the Maccabiah Games and coached in the Olympics. He led the Cavaliers to the 2015 NBA Finals in his first season as coach, and received a ring for the team’s championship the following year, despite being fired halfway through the season.
Deena Kastor, track & field
Deena Kastor attends an ASICS event, Feb. 27, 2020. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images for ASICS)
A Boston-area native, Deena Kastor is an eight-time national champion in cross country who won a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics and holds U.S. records for the 10-mile, 15-kilometer and 8-kilometer women’s road races. She previously held the U.S. record for women’s marathon and half marathon.
Kastor, 49, is a member of the National, New York and Southern California Jewish Sports Halls of Fame, and has also earned various honors from USA Track & Field.
Ilona Elek-Schacherer, fencing
The Hungarian fencer Ilona Elek-Schacherer wins in foil fencing during the Olympic Games, Aug. 1936. (Austrian Archives/Imagno/Getty Images)
Born in Budapest to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, Ilona Elek-Schacherer (1907-1988) would go on to become perhaps the greatest woman fencer of all time.
Elek-Schacherer competed in three Olympics for Hungary between 1936 and 1952, winning two gold medals and one silver medal. She also won 10 gold medals, five silver medals and two bronze medals in World Championships spanning 1934 to 1956. (It is unclear how she spent the war years.)
She won more international fencing titles than any other woman.
John Frank, football
John Frank, center, during a game at Candlestick Park on Dec. 7, 1990, in San Francisco, California. (Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images)
John Frank is a two-time Super Bowl champion tight end with the San Francisco 49ers who has enjoyed a successful second career as an otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor) with a focus on hair restoration surgery.
Frank, 60, also played football at Ohio State University, where he set a school record for receptions by a tight end and was twice honored as an Academic All-American. He was the team’s most valuable player his senior year.
Frank also co-founded the Israeli bobsled team and is a member of the Ohio State Athletic Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Merrill Moses, water polo
Merrill Moses during a match between the United States and Russia in Kazan, Russia, July 27, 2015. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Merrill Moses is a three-time Olympic water polo goalkeeper who earned a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and won the 1997 NCAA water polo championship with Pepperdine University.
Moses, 45, also played for the U.S. team in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and won gold medals at three Pan American Games in 2007, 2011 and 2015. He was inducted into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame in 2021 and is also a member of the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Moran Samuel, rowing
Moran Samuel competes during the 2022 World Rowing Championships in Racice, Czech Republic, Sept. 21, 2022. (Adam Nurkiewicz/Getty Images)
Moran Samuel is an Israeli world champion paralympic rower and basketball player. After suffering a spinal stroke in 2006, Samuel became paralyzed in her lower body.
Samuel, 40, played for Israel in the 2013 European Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Frankfurt. As a rower, she represented Israel at the Paralympic Games in 2012, 2016 and 2020. She won bronze and silver medals, respectively, in the latter two tournaments. Samuel also won a gold medal at the 2015 World Rowing Championships.
In 2012, Samuel won a race in single scull competition at a rowing tournament in Italy, but the event organizers were unable to play the Israeli national anthem — so she sang it herself.
Mordechai Spiegler, soccer
Mordechai Spiegler, far left, and the Israeli national soccer team lines up before a friendly match against Australia, May 25, 1970, in Mexico City. (Staff/AFP via Getty Images)
Considered among the best Israeli soccer players ever, Mordechai Spiegler’s crowning achievement was helping Israel qualify for the 1970 FIFA World Cup, the last time the country did so. He scored Israel’s only World Cup goal in history.
Spiegler, 78, was captain of the Israeli Olympic team that reached the quarterfinals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and his 32 national team goals were a record until 2021. Spiegler also coached for many years in Israel. He is a member of the Israeli Football Hall of Fame.
Outside of Israel, Spiegler played for the vaunted Paris Saint-Germain club and for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, where he was teammates with the Brazilian soccer legend Pelé, who died last month.
Dwight Stones, track & field
Dwight Stones competes in the men’s high jump final during the 1984 United States Olympic Track and Field Trials in Los Angeles, June 1984. (David Madison/Getty Images)
Los Angeles native Dwight Stones is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in high jump, including at the 1972 Munich Olympics, which was marred by the terrorist attack that killed 11 members of the Israeli delegation.
Stones, 69, won 19 national championships in his 16-year career, and still holds multiple world records. In 1984, he became the first athlete to both compete and be an announcer at the same Olympics. He has since served as a television analyst, including at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Stones is a Maccabiah Games alum and is a member of the U.S. Track Hall of Fame, the California Sports Hall of Fame and the Orange County Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Ariel Ze’evi, judo
Israel’s Arik Ze’evi in action against France’s Frederic Demontfaucon in the Men’s -100kg class in Beijing, 2008. (Tony Marshall/PA Images via Getty Images)
Ariel Ze’evi is a retired Israeli judo champion.
Nicknamed “Arik,” the 45-year-old Bnei Brak native won a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics as well as four European championships and a silver medal at the 2001 World Championships.
He also competed in the 1997 Maccabiah Games, two International Judo Federation Grand Slams (including a 2011 win) and two IJF Grand Prix.
Other honorees
Stuart Weitzman served as the U.S. team’s flag bearer. (Courtesy Maccabi USA)
The IJSHOF is also honoring shoe designer Stuart Weitzman with its lifetime achievement award and longtime co-editors of the Jewish Sports Review Ephraim Moxson and Shel Wallman with an award of excellence.
Weitzman is a Maccabiah pingpong medalist who has supported Maccabi USA with millions of dollars of support.
Moxson and Wallman recently concluded a 25-year run producing the Jewish Sports Review, a bimonthly magazine identifying Jewish athletes from college through professional sports.
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How I found freedom in a Passover Seder, an amp and a red Fender Duo-Sonic guitar
Passover at my cousin Doug’s house was always a strange blend of ritual, impatience and barely contained chaos. None of us was particularly religious, but we knew the drill: Read the Haggadah, dip the bitter herbs, eat a boatload of matzo, and laugh along as Uncle Sonny delivered his annual denunciation of religion. We rushed through the Seder with the urgency of people trying to outrun a bullet train. Everyone wanted to get to the oleshkas, the tzimmis, and my Grandma Min’s gefilte fish.
At some point during the adult drone that followed — politics, real estate, digestive-related medical complaints — I slipped away from the table in search of Doug’s electric guitar: a red Fender Duo-Sonic. Sleek, curved, impossibly alluring. The first time I saw it, Doug, then 17 or 18, played a halting version of “Hey Joe” for my sister and me. But it wasn’t only the sound that hooked me; it was the shape of the thing. I was 13, only a few months after my Bar Mitzvah, and the guitar felt like contraband, akin to the pot I would soon be smoking. I stared at it with the same stunned focus I reserved for an occasional glimpse of the bare backside of a Playboy centerfold.
The Haggadah asks: Why is this night different from all other nights?
For me, the answer was simple: It was the night I transformed from a pimply suburban teen into something mythic. If daily life — compulsive worry about my untamable Jewy hair, god-awful grades, and a steady stream of unrequited urges — felt like Egypt, then that red Duo-Sonic was my personal Moses.
A few weeks after Passover, my father — a serial entrepreneur who once marketed his own brand of car battery, opened the first Suzuki motorcycle shop in Minneapolis, and launched an eight-track cassette store he called Tape-O-Rama — bought Doug’s Duo-Sonic guitar and his Princeton Reverb amplifier for $150. He was as thrilled about it as I was. I remember him standing in my room, sleeves rolled up, trying to look like he knew what he was talking about. It was endearing and a little sad when he pointed at the amp’s knobs — treble, bass, tremolo, and reverb — and suggested I set them all to five.
“Let’s make ’em all the same, Pete.” He said. “Even Steven.”
My dad knew less than zero about rock, but as always, he wanted to help with something that mattered to me.
The guitar changed my life. Not instantly, but decisively. The first time I played with another kid my own age, my drummer friend Andy Kamman, an impressive musician even as a fifth-grader, I felt something shift. It wasn’t like school band, where I played the alto sax while the band director hovered over us, selecting songs notable only for their excruciating lameness. This was fully ours. No supervision. No rules. No permission required. I pulled my Duo-Sonic and the Princeton amp down the street in my Radio Flyer and set it up in Andy’s basement.
When he and I started playing, it felt shockingly intimate — frightening at first. Not that I knew what a sexual encounter was, but that’s what it felt like: two separate things — guitar and drums; two separate people — me and Andy — merging into a kind of oneness. I had no idea that this sudden unanimity would become an aspiration, not only in music but in all things. Music was simply the clearest expression of that spiritualized coming-together.
I’d play a riff; he’d shift the rhythm; I’d shift again. Words I hadn’t planned poured out. It was as close to conception as I’d get for a while. That transcendent aspect of music — its weird mixture of beauty, ego, and power — was already becoming clear.
By sixth grade we had a band: me on lead guitar and vocals, Andy on drums, Steve Grossman on bass, and Aron Goldfarb on rhythm guitar. We were rehearsing for the Peter Hobart Elementary Spring Concert in Andy’s basement and the whole neighborhood seemed to show up. We had a makeshift PA — one microphone duct-taped to his brother’s stereo — and we played our three originals on repeat. Most of them barely counted as songs. “Sorrowland” was two lines of lyrics and a four-chord progression. “Down by the River” had two chords and one line clearly stolen from Creedence Clearwater.
Our masterpiece was “Exit,” which I wrote during Drug Prevention Week. Every kid had to make a filmstrip warning against marijuana. Mine consisted entirely of dinosaurs I’d rubbed from National Geographic onto overhead projector sheets. I told the class that pot would make you hallucinate brontosauruses, which — completely contrary to the purpose of the curriculum — made drugs sound irresistible.
“Exit” was about a boy who tried to touch his girlfriend’s breast before she was ready and, to soothe his rejection, turned to pot. Its last verse closed with these lyrics:
Your hopes are down and you pick up a J,
it ain’t gonna help you anyway.
But you strike a match and you let it burn
now your mind is ready to turn…
I hit the tremolo pedal on the line “strike a match,” making my voice wobble in druggy vibrato. Everyone went nuts.
With all the attention, the band drama kicked in. Aron, our rhythm guitarist, kept insisting he sing lead — even though we had only one microphone and it was plugged directly into the stereo’s single input. “Hey, Goldfarb, stop being such a dickfarb,” I said into the mic. It got a big laugh. I repeated it until the phrase turned into a song. I strummed some chords and chanted “Goldfarb’s a dickfarb,” over a riff stolen from “Exit.” The room roared. Aron turned red, threw down his gorgeous sunburst Vox Teardrop — an absurdly expensive guitar his parents bought him before he could even play — and stormed upstairs.
Things began to snowball. Kids at the school drinking fountain hummed my guitar riffs. Laura Bloomenthal finally noticed me. And then: incredible news. Mrs. Perhofsky called my house to ask if our band would perform for residents of the Saint Paul Cerebral Palsy Center. $25 plus unlimited orange pop and Fritos. I was ecstatic — and terrified. I had a problem with inappropriate laughter. Not cruelty — just a tendency to laugh when I wasn’t supposed to. A waitress once spilled pancakes at Uncle John’s Pancake House, and I burst out laughing for no good reason. I worried this gig might trigger the same response.
We practiced nonstop: our originals, Creedence’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain,” a few Beatles songs. My nerves tightened with every rehearsal.
The center’s cafeteria was huge. We set up our amps and waited. Then the audience poured in — dozens of people reaching toward us, smiling, stomping, yelling with unbounded eagerness. One guy’s head was long and cylindrical, strapped to the back of a metal wheelchair. A pretty teenage girl with no hands drew a beautiful picture with a crayon held between her toes. An older woman with skin so thin I could see every vein greeted us warmly and made us feel at ease. When we started to play, the place exploded. People pounded on tables, shouted, danced and laughed. Andy played better than I’d ever heard him. We all did.
I felt something then I couldn’t name, a sense of having stepped into the world, of finally being part of something important. I was so overwhelmed I almost cried then and there. I probably would have, if I hadn’t been afraid the guys would laugh at me. After our originals and the Creedence numbers, they demanded more. So we played everything again. We cracked open my Beatles songbook and sight-read our way through half its pages.
I didn’t laugh. I didn’t feel the need. Not even close.
Without question, it was the best day of my life so far.
Freedom is like that.
The post How I found freedom in a Passover Seder, an amp and a red Fender Duo-Sonic guitar appeared first on The Forward.
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In a first, President Donald Trump to receive Israel Prize, the country’s top civilian honor
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that President Donald Trump will receive the Israel Prize in 2026, marking the first time the award will be bestowed to a foreign leader.
Trump was informed he had won the prize during a meeting with Netanyahu at his Mar-a–Lago estate as the pair discussed plans to push the ceasefire in Gaza into its second phase, a process that has stalled in recent months.
“For the first time in the history of the State of Israel: The Israel Prize will be awarded to President Trump!,” wrote Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch in a post on X. “This is a historic decision that expresses recognition of President Trump’s extraordinary contribution and lasting impact on the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.”
On a call with Kisch during the meeting, Trump said the award was a “great honor,” adding that to be the “first one outside of Israel is really something.”
While the prize has infrequently been awarded to non-Israeli citizens in its history, including to Indian conductor Zubin Mehta in 1991, Monday’s announcement marked the first time that a foreign leader has received the accolade.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the guidelines for the prize mandate that candidates must be Israeli citizens, with the exception of “candidates for the Israel Prize for Diaspora Jewry and/or for a special contribution to the Jewish people.” Mehta, for example, was music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Speaking beside Trump on Monday at a press conference in Florida amid negotiations for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, Netanyahu said that Trump would receive the award for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people.”
“President Trump has broken so many conventions to the surprise of people, and then they figure out, oh, well, maybe you know, he was right after all,” said Netanyahu. “So we decided to break a convention to or create a new one, and that is to award the Israel Prize, which, in almost our 80 years, we’ve never awarded it to a non-Israeli, and we’re going to award it this year to President Trump.”
Netanyahu added that the award “reflects the overwhelming sentiment of Israelis across the spectrum.”
“They appreciate what you’ve done to help Israel and to help our common battle against the terrorists and those who would destroy our civilization,” continued Netanyahu.
Trump has made no secret of coveting and appreciating prizes, having frequently said that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Netanyahu was among the world leaders, including officials from Pakistan and Cambodia, who nominated Trump for the Nobel. Earlier this month, the international soccer federation FIFA awarded Trump its inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In a first, President Donald Trump to receive Israel Prize, the country’s top civilian honor appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Faces Nationwide Protests Amid Economic Collapse as Israel Voices Support for Demonstrators
Protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions in Tehran, Iran, with some shopkeepers closing their stores on Dec. 29, 2025, in response to ongoing hardships and fluctuations in the national currency. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Iran on Monday experienced a second straight day of expanding nationwide anti-government protests, with violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces escalating as the country grapples with unprecedented domestic crises amid Israel’s open support for the protesters.
On Sunday, thousands of people joined protests across Tehran as shopkeepers closed their stores and went on strike over the country’s deepening economic crisis and the rial — the nation’s currency — plummeting to record lows, Iranian media reported.
Demonstrators are now calling to extend strikes into a third day on Tuesday, with closures reported across key markets and protests spreading nationwide amid mounting economic pressure and growing calls for regime change.
With public unrest sweeping the nation and disrupting commercial districts, security forces have escalated their crackdown, clashing violently with protesters while firing tear gas at shopkeepers.
In widely circulated social media videos, protesters can be heard chanting slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “[Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be toppled this year,” while also calling for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to step down.
Videos sent to Iran International show security forces confronting protesting shopkeepers in central Tehran on Monday, with riot police deployed around the Grand Bazaar and tear gas used on Jomhouri Street near the Hafez underpass. pic.twitter.com/OyhQlyUJaN
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) December 29, 2025
On Monday, Pezeshkian made his first official response to the protests, announcing that government officials had been instructed to engage in talks with community leaders.
“I have instructed the interior minister to hear the legitimate demands of the protesters by engaging in dialogue with their representatives, so the government can fully address the issues and respond responsibly,” the Iranian leader said in a televised speech.
According to Iranian media, Pezeshkian also appointed former economy minister Abdolnaser Hemmati as the new head of the central bank, announcing a leadership change amid growing criticism over the rial’s historic decline and accelerating inflation.
Meanwhile, Israel has openly expressed support for the protests, denouncing the Islamist regime’s ongoing oppression and pointing to the country’s dire economic and social conditions.
“People in Iran are exhausted with the regime and the collapsed economy,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote in a post on its Persian-language X account.
چون اسرائیل همیشه در کنار مردم ایران ایستاده است. https://t.co/KTC6j44Cpr
— اسرائیل به فارسی (@IsraelPersian) December 29, 2025
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also voiced his support for the protesters, saying they deserve a better future and affirming that the international community stands with them.
”The Iranian people have a glorious past, and they can have an even more glorious future. That future depends on every one of you,” Bennett said in a video posted on X.
“So, to all the brave men and women now rising up across your country, all the nations of the free world stand with you in your just struggle. Change is possible, there will be a better Middle East,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the Mossad — Israel’s national intelligence agency — used its X account in Farsi to urge the Iranian people to stand up to the regime, indicating agents would join them in support.
“Let’s come out to the streets together,” the Mossad wrote. “The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are with you in the field as well.”
با هم به خیابان ها بیایید. وقتش رسیده.
ما همراه شما هستیم. نه تنها از راه دور و شفاهی. در میدان نیز همراهتان هستیم.— Mossad Farsi (@MossadSpokesman) December 29, 2025
Iranian authorities warned that anyone accused of disrupting the country’s economic system would face punishment, calling such acts part of a “foreign-backed effort to destabilize the country.”
The Iranian Interior Ministry blamed the growing unrest on “hostile psychological operations,” claiming that foreign exchange fluctuations were driven by “enemy inducements” rather than economic factors, while urging the public to resist outside propaganda.
Iran has been facing a brutal economic and ecological crisis, with crippling pressure on its water and energy resources, forcing the government to take steps to relocate its capital amid mounting economic and foreign sanctions.
#BREAKING A video obtained by Iran International shows security forces shooting directly at protesters in Hamadan on Monday. pic.twitter.com/MiSXcdyrnp
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) December 29, 2025
As the country’s domestic crises deepen, the government has also intensified its internal crackdown.
According to Iran Human Rights Monitor (IHR), a Norway-based NGO that tracks the death penalty in the country, at least 1,791 people have been executed this year, marking a staggering rise from the 993 executions recorded in 2024.
Most of those executed were accused of collaborating with Mossad and aiding covert operations in Iran, such as assassinations and sabotage targeting the country’s nuclear program.
With at least 61 women among those executed, Iran remains the world’s leading executioner on a per capita basis, using capital punishment as a tool of repression, fear, and ideological control.