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Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon joins Tottenham, Premier League club with Jewish history
(JTA) — Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon is finalizing a five-year contract with the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the London-based Premier League team with a rich and at times controversial Jewish history.
In his first season in the prestigious Premier League this year, the 23-year-old winger broke onto the international scene as a member of Fulham FC, scoring in five straight games from Feb. 11 through March 6. He was the first Israeli player to ever accomplish that feat.
Solomon’s play drew interest from powerhouse clubs across Europe, including Spain’s FC Barcelona, England’s Arsenal and Germany’s RB Leipzig.
But in the end, pending the results of a physical, Solomon is joining one of the top Premier League teams, known for its sizable Jewish fanbase. Tottenham fans have for decades called themselves “Yids” and the “Yid army” in an affectionate way, but last year, the club asked fans to stop using the term, which is considered by many to be an antisemitic slur.
The Athletic reported that London’s Jewish community was a plus for Solomon and that Tottenham has a following in Israel.
Solomon, who hails from Kfar Saba in central Israel, played professionally for the Maccabi Petah Tikva team in Israel before joining the Ukrainian soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk in 2019. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Solomon recounted waking up “to the sound of explosions and sirens.”
Solomon left Ukraine, making the 17-hour journey to the Polish border. After a 10-hour wait in the freezing cold, Solomon returned to Israel. “I feel lucky I got out,” he said at the time.
Thanks to a FIFA rule permitting non-Ukrainian players on Ukrainian clubs to suspend their contracts after the start of the war, Solomon joined Fulham last summer. His Sephardic heritage allowed him to obtain a Portuguese passport, which helped facilitate his travel throughout the European Union.
Following his success as a rare Jewish star in the Premier League, Solomon became an icon in Israel, where fans refer to him as “King Solomon,” The Athletic reported in March.
“Everyone has their eyes on the TV to see what Manor is going to do,” sports writer Josh Halickman, who runs the Sports Rabbi website, told The Athletic. “That’s across the country. Any time that Manor is on TV now, you can guarantee the viewers are through the roof.”
Shakhtar Donetsk is trying to negotiate with Tottenham over a fee for losing Solomon to the Premier League, something the Ukrainian team would have received before FIFA, the global soccer body, instituted wartime rules.
“We are sure Tottenham executives understand that Shakhtar invested significant money in the Solomon transfer, investment that Ukrainian clubs in our difficult position simply cannot afford to lose,” Shakhtar Donetsk CEO Sergei Palkin told The Athletic.
Solomon is also a member of Israel’s national soccer team, which just qualified for the Olympics for the first time since 1976. Israel will be one of 16 teams competing in Paris in 2024.
Soccer at the Olympics is an under-23 sport, but each country is allowed three roster spots for players over 23. Solomon is 23 now and will be 24 by the Paris Games.
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The post Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon joins Tottenham, Premier League club with Jewish history appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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