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Jewish MLB star Ryan Braun headlines International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame’s 2024 inductees
(JTA) — Ryan Braun has no shortage of career accolades. The 14-year MLB veteran, who retired in 2021, won an MVP award and slugged 352 home runs.
Now the longtime Milwaukee Brewer and all-time Jewish home run leader can add another accomplishment to his resume: the 39-year-old is among the 15 sports figures in the 2024 induction class of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
The new class features athletes, coaches and media members representing sports ranging from baseball and soccer to fencing, swimming, ice and field hockey and more. Honorees hail from the United States, Israel, Canada and Argentina.
“I’m very excited about the class, how classy they are, their accomplishments,” said Jed Margolis, chairman of the hall of fame. “It really speaks so well to what an impact people have made in the world of sports. And at this venture in time, we really need some good news as Jewish people.”
Housed at the Wingate Institute for Physical Education and Sport in Netanya, Israel, the hall is one of many Jewish sports halls of fame around the United States and Israel seeking to celebrate Jewish success in sports and push back against stereotypes about Jewish athleticism — such as the infamous “Airplane!” scene.
Margolis said the 15 inductees were chosen from more than 150 nominees. Margolis narrows the list to around 25 finalists, who are then voted on by a selection committee of sports experts from around the world. Longtime Israeli athlete, sports leader and broadcaster Gilad Weingarten is this year’s recipient of the hall’s award of excellence.
The 2024 class brings the hall’s total to 463 members since its inauguration in 1981. The group will be honored at an induction ceremony in July 2025. Inductees are announced annually, but the ceremony itself is held every four years, when the Maccabiah Games take place in Israel.
At the 2025 ceremony, Margolis said, the hall will also mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps by honoring athletes who were murdered in the Holocaust and those who survived and went on to enjoy Olympic-level sports careers.
“We have so many world record holders, so many gold medalists at the Olympics and champions in their sport, like a Ryan Braun, who even had more home runs than Hank Greenberg,” said Margolis. Braun was also suspended in 2013 over a performance-enhancing drugs scandal.
“There’s just so much good stuff going on for our people, that it’s an opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of some very incredible people,” Margolis added, “and we have so much to be proud of.”
Margolis, who has worked in sports with organizations such as Maccabi USA and the JCC network for nearly 50 years, said he tries to personally call each inductee to share the news — which is often received with similar reactions of gratitude.
Margolis recounted that when he spoke to Braun, who is also a member of the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the former outfielder was out with his children.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry for bothering you during your quality time with your children,’” Margolis recalled. “He said, ‘This is very worthwhile. My father was born in Israel. It means so much to me. And I’m very touched by it.’ And that’s been the general reaction from people. They’re very excited, very touched.”
Read on to meet the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame’s 2024 class, listed alphabetically.
Aleksandr Averbukh, track and field
Born in the Soviet Union, Alex Averbukh is a decorated decathlete who won multiple international gold medals in pole vault. Averbukh, 49, began representing Israel in 1999, beginning a 14-year run where he won gold medals at the the 2000 European Indoor Championships, the 2002 and 2006 European Championships and the 2013 Maccabiah Games. His 2013 win in Israel came four years after Averbukh had officially retired from the sport. He also competed at the Olympics in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
Skip Bertman, baseball
Stanley “Skip” Bertman, 85, is one of the best baseball coaches in NCAA history. In 18 years as the head coach of Louisiana State University’s baseball team, Bertman led the Tigers to five College World Series championships and seven Southern Conference titles. Bertman earned 870 career wins, and his .754 winning percentage in NCAA tournaments is an all-time college baseball record. Bertman — who had Russian and Estonian immigrant parents — also coached at the 1988 and 1996 Olympics, where he led the U.S. team to a bronze medal in the latter tournament, and at the 1999 Pan American Maccabi Games.
Ron Bolotin, swimming
After losing one of his legs as a result of a landmine explosion he experienced during his service in the Israel Defense Forces, the Jerusalem native went on to a successful career as a paralympic swimmer. Bolotin earned 11 medals at six Paralympic Games between 1980 and 2000, winning three gold medals, five silvers and three bronze. Bolotin also won the 1976 Israeli National Championship for the butterfly stroke, as well as three European Championships gold medals between 1979 and 1990. At the 1979 European Championship, Bolotin set a world record for the 100-meter butterfly.
Ryan Braun, baseball
Ryan Braun is one of the best Jewish baseball players of all time. A six-time All-Star with an MVP and Rookie of the Year to his name, Braun finished his 14-year career with 352 home runs, 21 more than Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg. Braun’s father was born in Israel and lost family in the Holocaust. He is also one of many former and current Jewish players to speak out in support of Israel since war broke out last month. His legacy comes with an asterisk.
Michael Cammalleri, ice hockey
Mike Cammalleri played for five NHL teams over a 15-year career from 2002 to 2018. Cammalleri, whose maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors, scored at least 25 goals six times, with 294 total career goals and 348 career assists. He represented his native Canada four times, winning bronze and silver medals at the 2001 and 2002 World Junior Championships, respectively, and a gold medal at the 2007 Men’s World Ice Hockey Championships.
Linda Cohn, sportscaster
Linda Cohn is a longtime ESPN broadcaster who has anchored the network’s flagship program “SportsCenter” since 1992. She made history with ABC in 1987 when she became the first American woman to anchor a national radio network full-time. At ESPN, she has hosted national coverage of baseball, hockey, and men’s and women’s basketball. The former collegiate ice hockey goalie has won numerous media awards and is also in the SUNY Oswego sports hall of fame. In her 2008 memoir “Cohn-Head: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Breaking Into the Boys’ Club,” Cohn writes about her decision to play a hockey game on Yom Kippur — much to her mother’s disappointment.
Eli Dershwitz, fencing
This summer, Eli Dershwitz, 28, became the first American man to win an individual world championship in sabre fencing. The two-time Olympian is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and won two gold medals at the 2017 Maccabiah Games in Israel. The Boston-area native and Harvard University alum has also won four gold medals at the Pan American Championships, three at the Pan American Games and one at the Junior World Championships. He became the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. senior men’s sabre championship when he won the title in 2014. He is currently ranked No. 1 in the USA and third in the world in men’s senior sabre.
Jonathan Erlich, tennis
Jonathan “Yoni” Erlich is a former Israeli tennis star who was best known as doubles partners with fellow inductee Andy Ram. Together they became known as “Andyoni” and are the only Israeli team to ever win a grand slam tournament — the 2008 Australian Open men’s doubles title. Erlich earned his career-high doubles ranking that year, at No. 5. He reached 44 doubles finals in his career, winning half of them. Erlich also competed with Novak Djokovic at the 2010 Queen’s Club Championships, which is Djokovic’s only career doubles title. Erlich and Ram represented Israel at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, reaching the quarterfinals in 2004.
Abigail Hoffman, track and field
Abby Hoffman, 76, is a four-time Olympic runner who won gold medals at numerous international tournaments, including the Pan American Games and the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Hoffman won Canada’s national 800-meter championship eight times and set several Canadian and North American records in the 800- and 1,500-meter events. She won two gold medals at the 1969 Maccabiah Games, and she is a member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Jewish Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. Hoffman was also the first woman to lead Sport Canada, a federal government sports agency, and in 1981 was elected the first woman to serve on the executive committee of the Canadian Olympic Committee.
Giselle Kañevsky, field hockey
Giselle Kañevsky, 38, is an Argentine professional field hockey player and longtime national team member who has won numerous international competitions, including the 2010 World Cup. The Buenos Aires native trained at the Hacoaj sport club, where several Jewish Argentine athletes, including tennis star Diego Schwartzman, have also played. Kañevsky was a member of national teams that won bronze medals at the 2006 World Cup and the 2008 Olympics. She has also played professionally in the Netherlands.
Aaron Krickstein, tennis
Aaron Krickstein, 56, became the youngest player to reach the top 10 in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings when he accomplished the feat in 1985. He reached his career-high ranking five years later at No. 6. Krickstein won nine ATP tournaments and reached the semifinals at the 1989 U.S. Open. In 1983, Krickstein set an ATP record as the youngest player to win a singles title, which he earned at 16 years old in Tel Aviv. Both of his ATP records still stand. Krickstein told the Jerusalem Post last year that “For me, Jewish tradition means a lot.”
Andy Ram, tennis
The other half of “Andyoni,” Andy Ram, 43, was the first Israeli to win a Grand Slam event, in doubles at Wimbledon in 2006. He also won the 2007 French Open in doubles and the 2008 Australian Open in doubles with Erlich. His career-high ranking in doubles was No. 5 in the world, in 2008. He won 19 ATP doubles tournaments and was a runner-up in another 18. Ram competed in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics and in every Davis Cup tournament from 2000 to 2014.
Mitchell Schwartz, football
Mitchell Schwartz, 34, is a former Super Bowl Champion offensive tackle who played nine seasons in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and Kansas City Chiefs. He was drafted 37th overall by the Browns in 2012 and was named to the NFL’s All-Rookie team that season. He did not miss a snap for 121 consecutive games over eight seasons, which at the time was a record. Scwhartz and his brother Geoff were the first Jewish brothers to play pro football since Ralph and Arnold Horween in 1923. In 2016, they also published a book “Eat My Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith,” which put their Jewish background front and center. “My size comes from a childhood that included an excess of matzah ball soup, latkes and tons of white rice,” the 6-foot-6, 340-pound player once told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, ice hockey
Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, 55, a three-sport star at the University of New Hampshire, won a silver medal with the U.S. women’s national team at the 1992 Women’s World Championship. She is also a member of the UNH Athletic Hall of Fame. Weinberg-Hughes additionally worked in broadcasting, including as a sideline reporter for ESPN during the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Her husband Jim is also a former hockey player who has worked for multiple NHL teams. Her three sons — Jack, Quinn and Luke — are all current stars in the NHL, where they made history as the first three American siblings to get drafted in the first round.
Sara Whalen, soccer
Sara Whalen, 47, is one of the more accomplished Jewish women in U.S. soccer history. She was a key player on the U.S. Women’s National Teams that won the 1999 FIFA World Cup and a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics. Whalen was a three-time All-American at the University of Connecticut, where she also won the 1997 player of the year award from the United Soccer Coaches association and in her senior season won the Honda Sports Award as the nation’s top soccer player. She was a founding player in the now-defunct Women’s United Soccer Association.
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The post Jewish MLB star Ryan Braun headlines International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame’s 2024 inductees appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
The post Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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