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‘Mitzvah Mania’: A Los Angeles synagogue is hosting a show with Jewish professional wrestlers
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Colt Cabana, real name Scott Colton, is used to walking out to crowds of hundreds of fans as a member of All Elite Wrestling, a popular show that airs on channels such as TBS and TNT.
On Sunday, he’ll be wrestling at a synagogue.
Temple Beth Am, located in Los Angeles’ heavily Jewish neighborhood of Pico-Robertson, is putting on “Mitzvah Mania,” a one-off show with mostly Jewish wrestlers. It’s pegged to another event taking place this weekend: “WrestleMania,” the annual marquee event for the WWE, the country’s largest professional wrestling series.
“Mitzvah Mania” will break new ground for the synagogue with about 900 member families that typically holds more traditional programming, such as Shabbat dinners, adult education offerings and text study.
“We’re trying to do something different that synagogues haven’t seen before,” said Ari Fife, the synagogue’s director of programming and engagement.
The show, which is being billed as the first of its kind, will include six matches, five of which will feature only Jewish wrestlers who perform at various professional tiers, and one with a Jewish referee.
In addition to Cabana, attendees will see former Jewish WWE stars Lisa Marie Varon (or Victoria, as she was known in the ring) and Chris Mordetzky (a two-time National Wrestling Alliance champion known as Chris Masters and later Chris Adonis).
“Certainly in America, this is the first time there’s been representation in every match on the card, Jewishly,” said Jeremy Fine, a Chicago-area rabbi who planned the event.
The backstory started about seven years ago, when Fine, who runs the Jewish sports blog “The Great Rabbino,” went to his first independent wrestling show and saw Cabana, a fellow native of Deerfield, Illinois.
Fine was living in Minnesota at the time, and he recalled telling some of his congregants about the show. When they suggested putting on a wrestling show at the synagogue, he thought the idea was crazy. (Fine’s former synagogue is still innovating: they recently built an ice skating rink.)
“They were very persistent,” Fine told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We did it, and it was a huge success. And by our second show, we were sold out in a Minnesota blizzard on a Wednesday evening.”
Fine ended up hosting three wrestling shows at Temple of Aaron Synagogue in St. Paul Jewish with Israeli athletes and entertainers — “Mitzvah Mayhem,” “Hanukkah Havoc” and “Exodus.” It turned into his own wrestling company, 2econd Wrestling, that puts on shows near his current pulpit in Chicago and around the country, including Sunday’s event in L.A.
“Mitzvah Mania” will be Fine’s most Jewish show yet.
Fine had approached Beth Am about the event to tie it to “WrestleMania,” which rotates its location and is this year being held at nearby SoFi Stadium. Fife said the synagogue’s senior staff was hesitant about the idea, even as they set out to hold more unique events.
Fife, who himself grew up a wrestling fan, said there was initially “a lack of understanding of what wrestling really is.” For the uninitiated, professional wrestling in the likes of the WWE and AEW is a far cry from Olympic-style wrestling. In addition to being athletic performers, wrestlers like Cabana are also entertainment figures, complete with detailed costumes and character backstories.
Fife said once everyone understood the storytelling aspect of the sport — and were assured that it’s not as violent as they thought — the idea was approved.
“Mitzvah Mania” is sponsored by a number of Jewish organizations, including Maccabi USA, BBYO and the Jewish National Fund. Fife said Beth Am secured a grant from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles to help put the event on.
Fine said Jewish interest in wrestling has increased in recent years, in part thanks to Maxwell Jacob Friedman (known simply as “MJF”), the current AEW world champion and an outspoken and proud Jew. Earlier this month, for example, Friedman celebrated his “re-bar mitzvah” as part of an “AEW Dynamite” night on TBS. Jewish fans also cheered when Goldberg, one of the stars of the late 1990s and early 2000s WWE craze, returned to the ring in 2015.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman attends a UFC event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Dec. 10, 2022. (Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC)
The overlap between Jews and wrestling extends beyond the ring, Fine said, arguing that the connection is biblical — from Jacob wrestling with an angel in Genesis to rabbis intellectually wrestling in the Talmud.
“If we just take that and put it into the context of wrestling, we at our core, are storytellers,” Fine said. “We’re listening to the stories, and we’re incorporating them into our lives and we’re building up. And so wrestling is the greatest platform to struggle, to wrestle and to very much create stories that present a narrative for us to think and root for what’s good and boo what’s evil. That’s the story of Purim!”
He said it’s important for rabbis to go beyond the usual work of teaching the weekly Torah portion, or speaking about antisemitism and Israel. Many wrestlers Fine has worked with will approach him with questions about Judaism — from asking about holidays to basic questions about what a synagogue or JCC is.
“If we’re really going to defeat antisemitism, if we’re really going to be able to have intellectual conversations about the modern State of Israel, what better way to do that than rabbis getting into niche communities and really having those conversations, and not just talking to the congregants who either agree or have heard it before?” Fine said.
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The post ‘Mitzvah Mania’: A Los Angeles synagogue is hosting a show with Jewish professional wrestlers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish
(JTA) — Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has told U.S. government employees and their families that they may leave the country and should do so expediently, amid mounting signs of a possible U.S. attack on Iran.
Huckabee emailed embassy staff on Friday morning saying that if they want to leave, they should do so “TODAY,” according to a letter first reported by The New York Times. He noted that commercial flights could become scarce and urged them to accept passage to any country before returning to Washington, D.C.
“There is no need to panic, but for those desiring to leave, it’s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later,” he wrote.
The letter comes a day after U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva ended without public breakthroughs. Iranian officials, as well as the Omani mediators, said additional conversations were planned for next week; the United States did not comment. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher, two Jewish advisors to President Donald Trump who successfully brokered a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war last year, are leading the U.S. delegation.
Trump has been threatening to attack Iran for weeks over its nuclear program and has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East to levels not seen in decades. In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both said military intervention could be needed while saying the president continued to prefer diplomacy.
Vance’s comments were particularly notable because he typically opposes U.S. intervention overseas. He told the Washington Post in comments published Friday morning that there was “no chance” that the United States would get involved in an extended Middle East campaign.
Iran has said it would consider Israel a valid target in the event of a U.S. attack. Last year, Iranian missiles killed more than two dozen people in Israel during a 12-day war initiated by Israeli strikes on Iran’s military program. Now, Israelis have been living in limbo for weeks while waiting to learn whether a new war, expected to be more destructive, will begin.
In the past, when expecting Iranian retaliation, the embassy has warned staff against leaving population centers in Israel. Now, the Department of State has updated its Jerusalem embassy website to reflect “the authorized departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members of U.S. government personnel to leave Israel,” setting a status that means flights will be paid for by the U.S. government.
While El Al, Israel’s national carrier, does not fly during Shabbat, other airlines typically do run some flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport on Friday nights and Saturdays. Many of those are budget European airlines that have only recently resumed flying to Israel after last year’s Iran war; some airlines, including KLM, have already suspended Israel flights in anticipation of another conflict.
The post Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish appeared first on The Forward.
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San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie condemns ‘Tax the Jews’ chant heard during protest
(JTA) — Jewish leaders and California elected officials have condemned an antisemitic chant that was audible during a protest Wednesday against the repeal of a local San Francisco tax ordinance.
During a news conference addressing a new housing construction development plan hosted by San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie and San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, protesters with the Democratic Socialists of America chanted “tax the rich.”
According to videos reviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, one woman on the scene can be clearly seen and heard chanting “tax Israel” and “tax the Jews.”
For those curious, a source sent me this video of the press conference. You can hear a woman chanting “tax Israel” and “tax the Jews” about 30 seconds in. https://t.co/0fDb9H8TXH pic.twitter.com/PkdHLGzBc1
— Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler (@ggreschler) February 26, 2026
Lurie, who is Jewish, condemned the chants, which he said had come from a group of people.
“At an event this afternoon, a group of individuals that were chanting ‘tax the rich’ began to shout ‘tax the Jews,’” Lurie tweeted. “Suggesting that Jews are wealthy is a tired trope, and targeting our community at an event focused on creating economic opportunity for San Franciscans is decidedly antisemitic. I will never accept hate directed at the Jewish community or any community in our city. Those are not San Francisco values—we’re better than that.”
The DSA, the largest socialist organization in the country, distanced itself from the chants, saying that only a single person was involved and that she was not a DSA member.
“During today’s protest of the Prop I repeal, a non-member joined the crowd and spouted disgusting antisemitic remarks,” the DSA said in a statement. “DSA members and other protesters asked her to stop, but she refused. We want to be clear that whatever hate she holds isn’t shared by DSA members and we categorically reject antisemitism.”
In the videos, the woman is wearing a head covering and glasses and appears to be pacing a distance away from the other protesters.
The incident comes as the DSA, which endorses the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and opposes economic and military aid to Israel, has both notched major wins and drawn repeated allegations of antisemitism. After Oct. 7, it broke with one of its political stars, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, following her appearance on a panel where she condemned antisemitism. More recently, one of its members, Zohran Mamdani, was elected mayor of New York City. There, a DSA member last week challenged a DSA-affiliated elected official for condemning Hamas during an open meeting.
In San Francisco, the chant was condemned by other Jewish organizations, leaders and government officials, like the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, California Rep. Ro Khanna, and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
In a statement shared on X, Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said, “What does antisemitism look like? This. This is hate and extremism masquerading as progressive politics when, in fact, nothing about it is progressive — and it only undermines the fight for justice, all of our safety, and our democracy.”
The post San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie condemns ‘Tax the Jews’ chant heard during protest appeared first on The Forward.
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HarperCollins to publish book of conversations with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Chabad emissary slain in Sydney
(JTA) — A book featuring testimony from Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the Chabad emissary who was killed in December in an antisemitic terror attack in Sydney, will be published this spring, HarperCollins Publishers announced on Thursday.
Schlanger, who moved to Bondi Beach as an emissary of the Chabad movement 18 years ago, was the father of five children, including a newborn son. On Dec. 14, Schlanger was hosting the Chabad of Bondi’s Hanukkah celebration when two gunmen opened fire on the festivities, killing Schlanger as well as 14 others.
The book, titled “Conversations With My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World,” was written by Nikki Goldstein, a Jewish author who first encountered Schlanger during a hospital stay in 2022.
Last January, Goldstein and Schlanger began recording their conversations together for a book, but weeks before finishing its final chapter, Schlanger was killed.
“I was devastated, shocked, and grieving. But I knew that Eli’s legacy, his mission to bring light and love to the world, would not die with him,” Nikki Goldstein said in a statement. “Eli saved my life those years ago, and it’s my honor and privilege to ensure that his voice, memory, and mission are not silenced by terror and continue to work miracles.”
The book, which is set to be published on May 26, is the second major work centering a Jewish victim of terrorism to be released within a year. Former hostage Eli Sharabi’s memoir “Hostage,” published last fall, was named Book of the Year by the National Jewish Book Awards earlier this month. The memoir, which details Sharabi’s abduction by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and 15 months he spent in captivity before learning that his wife and daughters had been murdered, was a bestseller in Israel before coming out in English.
A book by another icon of the Israeli hostage crisis is slated to hit the shelves in April. Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s memoir, titled “When We See You Again,” chronicles her relentless advocacy to free her son Hersh, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequently murdered by Hamas in August 2024.
The post HarperCollins to publish book of conversations with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Chabad emissary slain in Sydney appeared first on The Forward.