Uncategorized
Jewish star guard Abby Meyers leads University of Maryland into top-10 spot in the NCAA tournament
(JTA) — Last July, Abby Meyers helped lead Team USA to a gold medal in women’s basketball at the Maccabiah Games, or the “Jewish Olympics,” in Israel. Starting next week, she hopes to embark on a run towards another championship: a Division I NCAA tournament title.
Meyers, a graduate transfer at the University of Maryland, is the starting shooting guard for a Terrapins team ranked sixth in the nation going into this Sunday, when the March Madness bracket seedings will be revealed. She averaged 14.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game this season and was named to the All-Big Ten Second Team, an honor that singles her out as one of the best players in the powerhouse conference.
Last week, Maryland lost to Iowa in the Big 10 tournament semifinals. Last March, they lost in the Sweet 16 round to Stanford.
“I think it just gives us more motivation going into the NCAA tournament,” Meyers said. “Especially if you’re a competitor, no one likes losing. But that’s part of the game, right? You live, you learn. And we’re lucky to have another opportunity.”
One particular group could help motivate her during what she hopes will be a deep tournament run: her Jewish fans.
“There’s an amazing following of Jewish students who come to my games, who support me and love the fact that I’m Jewish,” she said. Her school has one of the largest populations of Jewish students in the country, at around 6,000.
Growing up in Maryland’s Montgomery County, she attended synagogue at the Reform Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. and was surrounded by Jewish friends in the DMV area — the colloquial acronym for the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia region. She didn’t begin playing basketball competitively until high school.
She played with her two sisters, Emily and Olivia, in high school, then went first to Princeton. There she played with two Jewish teammates, Kira Emsbo and Maddie Plank, who also played with Meyers at the Maccabiah Games last summer.
“I see myself as a female Jewish athlete, and I think it really came to fruition this past summer when I went to the Maccabiah Games in Israel and was able to play alongside so many amazing, talented Jewish athletes from all over the world,” Meyers said. “That was different for me, because I’ve never been around so many Jewish athletes before.”
Meyers had tried out and made the Maccabi USA women’s basketball team in 2017, but decided not to play because she was about to enter college — a decision she now calls naive. The Maccabiah Games is a quadrennial sports competition that convenes thousands of Jewish athletes from around the world for an Olympics-style tournament in Israel.
So when the 21st Maccabiah Games were set to return in 2022, Meyers didn’t want to miss out again. She found out that Plank, who now plays at Davidson College in North Carolina, would be trying out, and that her assistant coach at Princeton, Lauren Battista, was a Maccabiah alum. Maccabi USA women’s basketball coach Sherry Levin also reached out to Meyers, and chose the 6-foot guard as team captain early on.
“I can’t speak more highly of a player that I’ve coached than Abby Meyers. And I’ve coached a lot,” Levin said. She hailed Meyers’ basketball IQ, her selflessness on the court and her leadership. “She checks every box.”
Meyers, who had never been to Israel, said the experience was “by far the most fun I’ve ever had.”
“It’s way more than just basketball. It’s really learning about your history, your ancestry and just appreciating all things Jewish,” Meyers said.
In addition to winning the gold medal, Meyers said her visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem stood out to her.
“To be there, in Jerusalem in that moment, it was really just a reflective moment,” Meyers said. “It made me just appreciate the opportunity I had to represent my country being a Jewish athlete, and to also have that opportunity to be there, in person, to be safe, to be healthy, and to just appreciate those who came before me.”
Plank echoed Levin’s praise for her teammate.
“Abby is probably the most basketball-loving, passionate, driven character that I’ve ever been around in my life,” Plank said. “She just leads by example. It’s such a pleasure being on the court with her.”
Plank said she and Meyers keep in touch now that they’ve both left Princeton (they played against each other this season — Maryland beat Davidson 70-52). She said she hopes to see Meyers in the WNBA one day.
If that WNBA dream doesn’t come to fruition for Meyers, she said that she is open to the possibility of playing professionally in Israel.
Meyers joined her close-to-hometown school as a graduate transfer last year after three seasons at Princeton, where she was unanimously named the Ivy League Player of the Year and earned First Team All-Ivy honors in her final year. She made the move in part to be closer to her family, including her grandmother, who she said has not been able to see many of her games.
Back at Maryland, Meyers isn’t surrounded by many Jewish players on the court. But she does appreciate the opportunity to explain concepts such as synagogue, Hebrew school and the Holocaust to non-Jewish teammates.
“I’m always happy and proud to be able to not educate, but to inform them on what it’s like to be Jewish,” she said. “There’s plenty of Jewish stereotypes out there, whether it’s looks, or that we’re just hardworking go-getters, which I love, because we are. But it’s special to have that kind of interaction with them where they’re open and willing listeners and learners.”
On campus at both Princeton and now Maryland, Meyers said she has engaged with chapters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement — which performs outreach and holds programming for a wide range of Jewish students on campuses across the country — and other centers of Jewish life.
“I was able to meet so many cool Jewish students who knew me and knew that I play basketball and have been to my games,” Meyers said. “It was just great to tap into that community, because automatically you feel like they’re your immediate friends.”
—
The post Jewish star guard Abby Meyers leads University of Maryland into top-10 spot in the NCAA tournament appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
Uncategorized
Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.