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Legendary Jewish tennis champion Dick Savitt dies at 95
(JTA) — Dick Savitt, the Jewish tennis champion who won both the Australian Open and Wimbledon Championships in 1951, died Jan. 6 at 95 at his home in New York. He was the first Jewish athlete to win either tournament.
A native of Bayonne, New Jersey, Savitt never took a tennis lesson — his primary sport was basketball. But he taught himself to play tennis as a teenager, and would go on to play at Cornell University. After army service and college, his national profile skyrocketed.
Savitt won both the Wimbledon and Australian Open championships in 1951 when he was only 24. He was the second American man to win both competitions in the same year. The New York Times ranked him the No. 1 player in the world.
That same year, the 6-foot-3 righty also reached the semifinals of the U.S. National Championships and the quarterfinals of the French Championships, now called the U.S. Open and French Open, respectively.
But despite Savitt’s international success in 1951, he was removed from the U.S. team for that year’s Davis Cup tournament. Arthur Ashe, the trailblazing Black tennis champion and a mentee of Savitt, questioned the decision to remove the U.S. team’s top player from the tournament.
“In those days, to be Jewish in the top ranks of tennis was to encounter a certain amount of prejudice,” Ashe wrote in his memoir, “Days of Grace.” “When Dick Savitt won Wimbledon, his right to a place on the Davis Cup team was challenged in some circles because he was Jewish.”
Savitt, however, insisted that antisemitism did not play a part in the decision, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Davis Cup snub aside, Savitt remained at the top of the sport. He became the first Jewish athlete to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on Aug. 27, 1951.
Savitt’s ascension was significant during a time when tennis remained primarily an amateur, country club-based sport. Many American country clubs during the early- and mid-20th century had a track record of excluding Jews (and Blacks) from membership and from using their facilities.
In 1952, Savitt retired from tennis at only 25 years old. He would return part-time to competitive tennis a few years later, and in 1961 won gold medals in men’s singles and doubles at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
After his playing career, Savitt supported the Israel Tennis Centers, and in 1998 served as its overseas director.
Savitt is a member of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
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The post Legendary Jewish tennis champion Dick Savitt dies at 95 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Australia Lists Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard as State Sponsor of Terrorism
Commanders and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Australia has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state sponsor of terrorism, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday, following an intelligence assessment that it had orchestrated attacks against Australia‘s Jewish Community.
Australia in August accused Iran of directing two antisemitic arson attacks in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne and gave Tehran’s ambassador seven days to leave the country, its first such expulsion since World War II.
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After Meeting Pope, Erdogan Praises His ‘Astute Stance’ on Palestinian Issue
Pope Leo XIV and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan shake hands as they meet at the Presidential Palace, during the pope’s first apostolic journey, in Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan praised Pope Leo’s stance on the Palestinian issue after meeting him in Ankara on Thursday, and said he hoped his first overseas visit as Catholic leader will benefit humanity at a time of tension and uncertainty.
“We commend [Pope Leo’s] astute stance on the Palestinian issue,” Erdogan said in an address to the pope and political and religious leaders at the presidential library in the Turkish capital Ankara.
“Our debt to the Palestinian people is justice, and the foundation of this is to immediately implement the vision of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Similarly, preserving the historic status of Jerusalem is crucial,” Erdogan said.
Pope Leo’s calls for peace and diplomacy regarding the war in Ukraine are also very meaningful, Erdogan said.
In September, Leo met at the Vatican with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and raised the “tragic situation” in Gaza with him.
Turkey has emerged as among the harshest critics of Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
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Hamas Continues to Reject Disarmament as Fragile US-Backed Gaza Peace Plan Faces Hurdles
Palestinians walk among piles of rubble and damaged buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Nov. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
As the US-backed Gaza peace plan falters amid mutual accusations of ceasefire violations, Hamas continues to refuse to disarm in accordance with the agreement, insisting that any decisions about the terrorist group’s weapons should be resolved through “internal Palestinian dialogue.”
In an interview published Wednesday with Saudi media outlet Al-Arabiya, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that any move toward disarmament “is connected to internal consensus, and is also tied to a real political process that leads to an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
The senior terrorist figure also said Hamas has “fully committed to everything required in the first stage in order to open the way for transitioning to the second stage, which Israel continues to obstruct.”
Last week, the United Nations Security Council formally backed US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan — which went into effect last month — calling for an interim technocratic Palestinian government in the war-torn enclave, overseen by an international “board of peace” and supported by an International Stabilization Force (ISF) for at least two years.
Under Trump’s plan, the ISF — comprising troops from multiple participating countries — will oversee the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, train local security forces, secure Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, and protect civilians while maintaining humanitarian corridors.
In addition, the ISF would seemingly be expected to take on the responsibility of disarming Hamas — a key component of Trump’s peace plan to end the war in Gaza which the Palestinian terrorist group has repeatedly rejected.
Earlier this week, Hamas leader and chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said that the group’s disarmament remains under discussion, emphasizing that the issue “is tied to the end of the Israeli occupation.”
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have not only consistently refused to give up their weapons but also rejected key elements of Trump’s plan — including the ISF, which they have threatened to treat as a “foreign occupying force” and actively fight it.
Hamas officials rejected any “foreign guardianship” over Gaza and vowed to oppose any attempts to disarm “the Palestinian resistance.”
“Assigning the international force tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation,” the terrorist group said in a statement.
In his Wednesday interview, Qassem emphasized that Hamas’s senior delegation visit to Cairo this week reflects the group’s seriousness, signaling its intent to move forward and lay the groundwork for the next stage.
According to Qassem, Hamas has been meeting with Qatari, Turkish, and Egyptian mediators, as well as with Palestinian factions, “to consult and engage in dialogue, and to reach agreed-upon national political understandings.”
Turkey and Qatar, both longtime backers of Hamas, have been trying to expand their roles in Gaza’s reconstruction and post-war efforts, which experts have warned could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected any Turkish or Qatari involvement in post-war Gaza.
Under phase one of Trump’s peace plan, Hamas released the remaining 20 living hostages still held in Gaza, along with the remains of most of the 28 others who died in captivity, while Israel freed 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred convicted terrorists.
Two deceased hostages – an Israeli and a Thai national – still remain in Gaza who were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.