Uncategorized
Former baseball star Darryl Strawberry is now an evangelical preacher focused on promoting Israel
(JTA) — As part of his journey after a tumultuous decade and a half in the spotlight, former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry is speaking at a pro-Israel event in his second career as an evangelical minister.
Strawberry, an eight-time MLB All-Star-turned-traveling-preacher, will be a panelist on Thursday at Extending the Branches of Zionism, an event taking place in New York City and organized by the Jewish National Fund-USA focused on support for Israel among non-Jews.
The panel will include participants from two JNF-USA programs that Strawberry supports called the Caravan for Democracy Student Leadership Mission and the Faculty Fellowship Program in Israel. Both bring non-Jews on Birthright-style trips with the intention of having participants subsequently discuss Israel on college campuses.
“I think the most important thing is, as a non-Jewish person, you have to be able to educate them about Israel,” Strawberry told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on a Zoom call. “I think in this country, a lot of people talk about Israel, and talk about the Jewish people, but they’ve never been there. So they don’t even have a clue.”
Strawberry, 60, was a New York sports icon in the 1980s as a leading member of the 1986 World Series champion Mets. With a picturesque, looping swing, the lanky 6-foot-6 outfielder could both hit for power and show off speed on the bases, drawing early predictions from sports analysts that he was destined to be an all-time great.
But Strawberry instead became a poster child for the team’s hard-partying ways, and he and fellow phenom Dwight “Doc” Gooden saw their careers hampered by drug addiction and scandal. Strawberry’s downfall included multiple stays in drug and alcohol rehab centers; multiple surgeries for colon cancer and losing his left kidney; and a charge for getting caught soliciting a prostitute in 1999, the last year he would play professional baseball.
Darryl Strawberry bats in a game between the New York Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh in 1986. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
Soon after that, Strawberry began attending an evangelical church and spent seven years “being discipled,” or learning from a teacher steeped in evangelical knowledge.
“I would have never thought that was the true calling in my life,” Strawberry said. “And I would have a chance to experience the true meaning of life and be able to go to places I always wanted to go.”
In 2018, one of those places turned out to be Israel, a country he says he knew nothing about until his years of religious study.
“Once I finally got there, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, it is so beautiful.’ It’s so amazing, to be able to experience something that I’ve read so much about, and to be able to walk those grounds,” he said.
Evangelical Christianity stresses the importance of being “born again,” or having a spiritual awakening centered on faith in Jesus. Evangelicals have at different points over the past two decades made up close to a quarter of the U.S. population. (The vast majority of them are white.)
Many also believe that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of God’s promise to give the land to the Jewish people. Christian Zionist movements such as Christians United for Israel, a group that claims about 11 million members, have played a significant role in the Republican Party’s strong support of Israel.
Many evangelicals additionally believe that when Israel’s contemporary boundaries eventually match up with the land that Jews were promised by God, that moment will kickstart the Rapture — or the return of Jesus accompanied by the end of times. A 2017 poll by LifeWay found that 80% of evangelicals believe the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 shows “we are getting closer to the return of Jesus Christ.”
For years, Strawberry — who is based at the nondenominational Journey Church in Troy, Missouri, about 50 miles west of St. Louis — has given sermons at megachurches and talked about his recovery story. More recently, he has also talked with prison inmates about turning their lives around. But promoting Israel has become a main focus for the Straw Man.
He demurred when asked for his thoughts on the country’s new right-wing government, which has drawn criticism from across the global political spectrum — including from some American conservatives — over policies it has advanced, including legislation that would sap the power of the Supreme Court.
“I keep it separated from the politics,” Strawberry said about his Israel advocacy. “I know what it’s about — it’s about the people, and it’s about the culture there. That’s what I know, and nobody else can tell me any different.
“I went there and saw, you know, the Sea of Galilee,” he added. “These are real places, you know? These are real places, and [biblical] things happened there in real time.”
New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera — who was Strawberry’s teammates in the late 1990s as a member of multiple World Series-winning teams — is also an evangelical Israel supporter. Strawberry said the two are friends and have bonded over their shared religion.
Strawberry wants to soon return to Israel, where he visited the Western Wall and was surprised that people knew who he was. Baseball is not a popular sport there, lagging far behind others such as soccer and basketball.
“I was blown away. I was like, ‘how did they know me over here?’” Strawberry said.
For now, Strawberry said he might track how Team Israel does in the upcoming World Baseball Classic tournament.
“How cool is that?” he said about the team qualifying. “That should be exciting, it’s an exciting time for them to be playing in that.”
—
The post Former baseball star Darryl Strawberry is now an evangelical preacher focused on promoting Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
UK Jewish leaders demand answers after Muslim police group paper calls Zionism a form of hatred
(JTA) — British Jewish groups say they are alarmed about revelations that a fraternal society for Muslim police officers published a policy paper that described Zionism as a form of anti-Muslim hatred and called the Israeli army a “Zionist terrorist group.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews called the paper posted by the National Association of Muslim Police “disturbing” in its presentation of Jewish identity, history and the nature of antisemitism.
“If this is being circulated among officers, it poses a direct challenge to the integrity of policing and it should be withdrawn immediately,” the group said.
NAMP has distanced itself from the report and, in a statement, rejected any allegation that the group “supports Hamas.”
The 39-page paper titled “From Past Prejudices to Present Policies: Confronting anti-Muslim hatred and Promoting Human Rights,” was written by NAMP’s then-vice president, Khaldoun Kabbani, and published in July 2025. It says “Zionism represents one of the manifestations of anti-Muslim hatred”; likens the war in Gaza to the Holocaust; and disputes facts about Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, including that Israeli children were killed.
The Spectator, a right-wing British newspaper, drew attention to the report in a piece published on Friday that said the report illuminated “the disturbing truth about the National Association of Muslim Police.” The group has a formal affiliation with 16 of 43 police departments in the U.K. and says it represents more than 20,000 officers.
Kabbani, a forensics officer, was briefly the chair of the Scottish Muslim Police Association but planned to move abroad after retiring earlier this year, according to a post by the group on LinkedIn.
The revelation of the NAMP report comes at a time of heightened tension over policing in the U.K., amid both a surge in anti-Jewish crimes and a renewed uproar over a December murder that has fueled allegations of “two-tier policing” that treats some victims differently from others. The Spectator referenced the victim, Henry Nowak, in the column about NAMP.
The NAMP report has spurred distress for many British Jews who are on edge amid a string of violent incidents targeting Jewish communities. The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a watchdog group, said its polling shows that 83% of British Jews do not think the police are doing enough to protect them — and that the report suggested their concerns were well founded.
“The people responsible for publishing this extremist screed on the official police.uk web domain are unfit to be police officers and must be immediately investigated by their respective forces’ professional standards departments and dismissed,” Steven Silverman, CAM’s director of investigations and enforcement, said in a statement.
“British Jews have long suffered two-tier policing that sees antisemitic crime go unpunished,” he said, adding that CAM would press the British government “ensure a clear message is being sent. This cannot pass with the document being quietly deleted.”
The report was removed from NAMP’s website over the weekend. The group distanced itself from the report in a statement published on Tuesday, saying that it had removed the report “immediately” after learning about its existence and emphasizing that the author was “no longer associated” with NAMP.
“We understand that the publication of this document has affected several communities, and we regret any concern, discomfort, or misunderstanding it may have caused,” the group said.
It added, “NAMP categorically does not ‘defend’ Hamas or any other proscribed organisation. We condemn all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
The document is “deeply troubling,” a spokesperson for the Jewish Leadership Council, which coordinates British Jewish groups, said in a statement.
“This document appears to falsely associate an ideology held by the majority of Jewish people as a threat to Muslims. It also engages in deeply troubling Holocaust inversion and denial of some of the worst atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7th,” the spokesperson said. “At a time of rising antisemitism including violent attacks on British Jews, this document further threatens community cohesion and police forces should be clear in distancing themselves from it.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it plans to speak with the “relevant” government and police departments to discover the paper’s provenance, how it’s being used and “how to ensure that the valued relationships of trust between British Jews and the police are not being undermined.”
The Metropolitan Police of London, the largest police department in the U.K. and a formal NAMP affiliate, declined to comment on the report. The department has recently stepped up policing in Jewish communities in an effort to stem antisemitic violence.
The post UK Jewish leaders demand answers after Muslim police group paper calls Zionism a form of hatred appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jacob Reses, Vance’s Jewish chief of staff, to leave administration
(JTA) — Jacob Reses, the Jewish chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance, is leaving the administration at the end of the summer, a source confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Thursday.
Reses, who’s been in his role since Vance and President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, is perhaps the closest Jewish official in Vance’s orbit. He has had a close relationship with the vice president since Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed NBC News’ initial report that Reses informed Vance of his decision months ago, after his wife became pregnant. Vance said in a statement on Thursday that he will “miss him dearly, but he won’t be far, and I plan to keep his counsel close until our paths cross again.” Reses’ plans for his next role are currently unknown.
Vance has recently drawn the ire of some Jewish Republicans who say that he has refused to confront antisemitism on the right, including from former Fox news host Tucker Carlson. (Carlson’s son is also a Vance staffer.) A New York Magazine profile published in March suggested that Reses was on board with Vance’s approach, and revealed that Reses used his private X account to amplify voices calling on Jews to embrace, rather than resist, the Christian nationalist current surging within the GOP.
Reses has been “by my side for my whole career in public life,” Vance said in a statement.
“I can’t imagine having been on this life-changing journey without him,” Vance said. “From day one of my time as a Senator-elect, I could not have asked for a more loyal and discerning advisor and friend as my chief of staff.”
The personal bond between the two men was on display in January, when Vance took part in Reses’ wedding to Rachel Altman at a synagogue in Rockville, Maryland, delivering a Jewish prayer under the chuppah. Chabad of Princeton University, Reses’ alma mater, posted a photo of the couple with the vice president, celebrating the occasion as an expression of Jewish pride.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTrUKXEDOQE/?img_index=3
That closeness, and Reses’ reported alignment with Vance’s stance on right-wing antisemitism, have not spared Reses from becoming a target of antisemites. In one instance, a white-nationalist website ran an article about him headlined, “Another Nail in the Coffin — Jew Runs J. D. Vance.”
A Jewish Telegraphic Agency profile published in 2024, when Vance was selected as Trump’s running mate, traced Reses’ Jewish identity and his journey from a Democratic-leaning Jewish teenager in southern New Jersey, whose grandfather escaped the Holocaust in Lithuania, to one of the most influential conservatives in Washington. His trajectory included internships for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, a political conversion at Princeton and stints at the Heritage Foundation and in the office of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.
On Thursday, Republican leaders and Trump administration officials sang Reses’ praises in statements shared with JTA.
“Jacob Reses has been an invaluable, loyal, and trusted hand to Vice President Vance and President Trump,” said Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “As a proud Jewish American, whose own family story carries the weight of our people’s history, Jacob brought both conviction and clarity to one of the most consequential roles in Washington.” Brooks added that the RJC has “no doubt he will continue to play a critical role moving forward.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s seen as a possible challenger to Vance for the 2028 presidential nomination, said that Reses served Vance and the entire administration “with distinction,” and that he “understands the moment we’re in and he spent every day fighting to deliver results for the President.”
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said he was proud to have Reses “by my side in negotiating some of the toughest deals for the President.”
“Don’t let Jacob fool you — beneath his kind exterior he’s a killer,” Witkoff said. “It’s been a delight to get to know him through the Vice President, and our foreign adventures from Israel to Pakistan have been historic.”
He added, “We haven’t seen the last of him.”
The post Jacob Reses, Vance’s Jewish chief of staff, to leave administration appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Helen Mirren criticizes Israel at film festival after being called ‘evil Zionist’ in viral video
(JTA) — British actor Helen Mirren criticized Israel at a film festival in Italy, in her first public comments since security footage of a November incident where she was accused by a stranger of being an “evil Zionist b—h” went viral late last month.
“Evil forces are rising everywhere, even in a country like Israel,” Mirren said in an interview with journalists at the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, according to reports in entertainment media. “How could you possibly repeat the actions of what was done to you as people to other people? Crimes against humanity, it’s called.”
The Academy Award-winning actor, who is 80, is being honored with a lifetime achievement award from the festival on Friday. Her many roles have included playing former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the 2023 biopic “Golda,” which she premiered in Jerusalem.
Mirren is not Jewish but has a long history of connection to Israel, dating back to 1967, when she traveled with a Jewish boyfriend to work for a month on a kibbutz in the country’s north.
She referenced that period in her comments at Taormina.
“I saw it from the inside and I saw some things that disturbed me from the inside in Israel at that time,” she said, according to Deadline. “I’m talking about six months after the Six Day War.”
Mirren has previously criticized the Israeli government. While promoting “Golda” in early 2023, she said she believed that Meir would be “utterly horrified” by Israel’s current leadership, which she referred to as a “dictatorship.”
But she also spoke favorably about Israel during the promotional events, which shortly preceded the Hamas attack that began the war in Gaza.
“I believe in Israel, in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future, for the rest of eternity,” she told the country’s Channel 12 in August 2023. “I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.”
During the November incident, the person who accosted Mirren and her husband Taylor Hackford appeared to reference those comments, saying, “She said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust, and she was very happy that Palestinians’ houses were gone.”
Hackford responded, “F–ck off,” and Mirren did not say anything in the video.
At Taormina, the actor offered a more nuanced characterization of her beliefs while also praising Israel’s creative and intellectual communities.
“I grew up in Europe post-Second World War and the realization in my parents’ generation of what had happened in the Holocaust was so profound, so important,” Mirren said. “Therefore, the creation of Israel was a very important moment, although maybe it was done in completely the wrong way, in the wrong place, I don’t know. But something had to happen after the horror.”
According to Variety, she also said, “The evil is always lurking, waiting to take over, even in a place like Israel. I played Golda Meir and worked in a country that was the idealistic Israel, and I always thought it was a country that would never do wrong, but of course they were doing wrong, even then.”
About the viral video showing her being accosted, Mirren told journalists at the festival she believes she was “attacked by mistake by a man who was maybe a little over passionate or maybe mentally not quite stable.”
She added, “I don’t know whether he read things on the Internet or thought he read something which he hadn’t read, I don’t know.”
Though London’s Metropolitan Police initially said it was possible for an incident to be investigated as an antisemitic hate crime even if the victim is not Jewish, it will not be investigating further, as Mirren and Hackford have decided not to press charges.
The post Helen Mirren criticizes Israel at film festival after being called ‘evil Zionist’ in viral video appeared first on The Forward.
