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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.”
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Attacks in South Lebanon Strain Ceasefire on Eve of Washington Talks
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in southern Lebanon, March 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli strike killed two people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon‘s state news agency reported, and Hezbollah said it launched an attack drone at Israeli forces in the south, further straining a ceasefire between the Iran-backed terrorist group and Israel.
On the eve of talks in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Beirut would seek an extension of the 10-day, US-mediated ceasefire, which is set to expire on Sunday.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the Lebanese Islamist group opened fire in support of Iran.
The US-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon emerged separately from Washington’s efforts to resolve its conflict with Tehran, though Iran had called for Lebanon to be included in any broader truce. The United States has denied any link between the tracks.
Lebanon‘s state-run National News Agency said the Israeli strike hit a car in al-Tiri, a village in south Lebanon, killing two people inside. The Israeli military didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hezbollah said it attacked an Israeli artillery position in southern Lebanon with a drone, in response to what it said was an Israeli violation of the ceasefire. The Israeli military said it had intercepted “a hostile aircraft” launched by Hezbollah toward Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched an offensive in response to Hezbollah’s March 2 attack, according to Lebanese authorities. Israel says the vast majority of those killed have been Hezbollah terrorists, who often embed themselves in civilian areas.
Israeli forces have seized a belt of territory at the border where troops remain, saying they aim to create a buffer zone to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during the conflict.
BEIRUT TO SEEK END TO ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS
Aoun said Beirut’s envoy to Thursday’s talks, Lebanese Ambassador to Washington Nada Moawad, would seek a ceasefire extension and a halt to demolitions being carried out by Israel in villages in the south, according to a statement.
A Lebanese official said Beirut wants a ceasefire extension as a prerequisite for talks to expand beyond the ambassadorial level to the next phase, in which Lebanon would push for an Israeli withdrawal, the return of Lebanese detained in Israel, and a delineation of the land border.
Hezbollah, which says the Lebanon ceasefire was the fruit of Iranian pressure, has condemned Beirut for seeking talks with Israel, reflecting wider splits with the government that has sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament for a year.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a speech, said Israel had taken a “historic decision to negotiate directly with Lebanon after more than 40 years” whilst also calling it a “failed state.”
“I call on the Government of Lebanon: Let’s work together against the terror state that Hezbollah built in your territory. This cooperation is needed by you even more than by us,” he said.
The Israeli military said it had killed two terrorists who had crossed its “Forward Defense Line” in south Lebanon on Tuesday and approached Israeli soldiers, saying they had violated the ceasefire.
DRUZE LEADER URGES CLEAR AGENDA, INCLUDING WITHDRAWAL
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to attend Thursday’s meeting. Israel will be represented by its ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter.
Aoun has cited goals including halting Israeli attacks on Lebanon and securing the withdrawal of Israeli troops. In a speech on Friday, he said a ceasefire should be transformed into “permanent agreements that preserve the rights of our people, the unity of our land, and the sovereignty of our nation.”
Announcing the ceasefire on April 16, US President Donald Trump said he had instructed Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine to work with the two countries to achieve lasting peace.
Lebanon and Israel have remained in an official state of war since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Lebanon‘s most senior Shi’ite state official, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is against face-to-face negotiations with Israel, saying Beirut could have negotiated indirectly.
Lebanon‘s leading Druze politician, Walid Jumblatt, said on Tuesday that the most Lebanon could offer is an update to a 1949 armistice agreement with Israel.
In comments to reporters after a meeting with Berri, Jumblatt said there should be a clear agenda for talks that includes a withdrawal of Israeli troops still in southern Lebanon.
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Dutch Prosecutors Seek 30-Year Sentence for Alleged Syrian Torturer Who Backed Assad
Fighters of the ruling Syrian body inspect the site of a mass grave from the rule of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, according to residents, after the ousting of al-Assad, in Najha, Syria, Dec. 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Prosecutors in the Netherlands on Wednesday demanded a 30–year prison sentence for a Syrian man accused of torturing and raping prisoners when he was a member of a militia that backed the government of former president Bashar al-Assad.
Prosecutors have charged 58-year-old Rafik A., whose last name is withheld by the Dutch court, with 25 counts including torture, sexual violence, and rape as crimes against humanity against nine people in 2013 and 2014.
Rafik A. has repeatedly denied any involvement with the alleged crimes. The case is the first in the Netherlands to deal with alleged atrocity crimes in Syria committed by pro-government forces. It is also the first time Dutch prosecutors have charged sexual violence as a crime against humanity.
Cases against Assad-era security officials have also been brought in other European countries, including Germany.
Witnesses who survived the defendant’s attacks spoke of the physical and psychological torture inflicted by A. during the trial.
“Not only did he tear my body apart, but he trampled on my soul. He was the worst nightmare of my life,” one witness said, recounting that he entered detention as a child and emerged as a traumatized adult.
Prosecutors say Rafik A. was the head of the interrogation unit of the National Defense Forces (NDF) in Salamiyah, Syria, in 2013 and 2014. The NDF was a militia that fought on the side of the government of Assad, who was ousted in December 2024.
Rafik A. was arrested in 2023 in the Netherlands, where he had lived for several years as an asylum seeker.
Under the concept of universal jurisdiction, Dutch law broadly allows cases to be brought against foreign nationals for crimes committed abroad if the perpetrators or some of the victims are present in the Netherlands.
Rafik A.’s lawyers and lawyers for his alleged victims will give their closing arguments on Thursday. The verdict is expected on June 9.
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French Soldier Dies of Wounds After Attack on UN Force in Lebanon, Macron Blames Hezbollah
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference in Paris, France, June 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that a second French soldier had died following an attack on United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon last week, which he said was carried out by Iran‑backed Hezbollah.
The soldier, Chief Corporal Anicet Girardin, was severely wounded on April 18 and died of his wounds after being evacuated to France on Tuesday, Macron said in a post on social media platform X.
One of his colleagues was killed immediately while clearing a road in southern Lebanon in the same attack on the UN peacekeeping mission.
Macron blamed Hezbollah terrorists for the attack.
UNIFIL said initial assessments indicated the fire came from non‑state actors, allegedly Hezbollah, and that an investigation had been launched into what it called “a deliberate attack.”
Hezbollah has denied any involvement, expressing its “surprise at positions that rushed to make baseless accusations” against the Islamist group.
During a visit to Paris on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said he was personally following the investigation into the incident.
“I have instructed the police force to carry out all necessary inquiries in order to identify those responsible and bring them to justice,” he said.
France, which has deep historical ties to Lebanon, has about 700 troops as part of the UNIFIL mission.
Three French soldiers have now died in the region since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February. One was killed earlier in northern Iraq after a drone attack on a French‑Kurdish base.
Since 1978, more than 160 French soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.