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Ted Lerner, real estate developer who brought baseball back to Washington, dies at 97
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ted Lerner, who died on Sunday at age 97, was as famously workaholic as he was shy.
So it was a big deal when Washingtonian magazine scored an interview with him in 2007, the year after he assumed ownership of the Nationals, the first baseball team in Washington, D.C., since 1971.
In the interview, Lerner described his 18-hour days building up a real estate empire of malls and other developments that has shaped D.C. and its suburbs. He also mentioned the two things that could pull him away from his work: a ball game, and Jewish holidays.
“I just worked,” he said. “I took off for Jewish holidays and a [football] game or two.” But he said his true love was baseball, a game that brought him back to the days of his youth.
“In Washington in the 1930s, that’s all there was — baseball,” he said.
He recalled that as a teenager, he would aim to sell enough Saturday Night Evening Posts to afford the streetcar to the Senators’ Griffith Stadium (price: 3 cents) and the cheapest ticket (25 cents).
He managed to get a gig as an adolescent usher to watch the 1937 All-Star game at the stadium — “when Dizzy Dean was hit on the foot by a line drive,” he told the magazine. “He was never the same after that.” (The injury effectively ended the legendary pitcher’s career.)
When Major League Baseball decided in 2004 that the Montreal Expos’ new home would be in Washington, he secured meetings with the team’s management for himself and his heirs. His son and two daughters, and their spouses, were his sacrosanct inner circle.
Lerner did not schmooze at Major League Baseball confabs and did not mount a publicity campaign. But his seriousness led him to beat out seven other bids for the Nationals.
The payoff for that decision came in 2015, when the stadium he built to house the team hosted Washington’s first All-Star Game since 1969. Lerner brought a memento to that match: the program of the 1937 All-Star Game, with his notations scribbled in the margins.
One aspect of the job Lerner never got used to was public speaking. His high school yearbook dubbed him “Silent Ted.”
Alongside baseball, Lerner made his name by turning northern Virginia into a locus for shopping. The massive mall complex he built from dairy farms, Tysons Corner, gained international renown.
Lerner died at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of complications from pneumonia. He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. to Orthodox Jewish parents. His father immigrated from British Mandatory Palestine, and his mother came from Lithuania. His extensive charitable giving included donations to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and his synagogue, Ohr Kodesh.
“I never could have dreamed of owning a baseball team,” he said in 2015, receiving the Urban Land Institute Washington’s lifetime achievement award, when he contrasted his style with that of another famous real estate developer.
“And I never could have imagined over my life that I would build over 20 million square feet of commercial and residential space, and very few people would know my name,” he said. “I guess I have a different approach to real estate development than Donald Trump. And I’m fine with that.”
After he purchased the Nationals, the team continued to grow its local fan base but took years for the team to become a contender. General Manager Jim Bowden explained the strategy to Sports Illustrated in 2012.
“The Lerners made it clear: We’re not in a hurry,” Bowden said. “We want to build this through just like we build our buildings, from the bottom up. We don’t build the penthouse first.”
The strategy paid off. A year after Lerner, age 93, handed his son Mark control of the team in 2018, the Nationals won the World Series.
“There were generations of baseball fans who grew up in D.C. without a team,” Mark Lerner told The New York Times at the time. “Now they have one, and one that won a World Series. To put it into context, my father was born one year after we won the last World Series. That says it all.”
In addition to Mark and his wife, Annette, Lerner is survived by his daughters, Debra Lerner Cohen and Marla Lerner Tanenbaum, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. His family still owns the team.
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Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Battering Jewish DePaul University Students
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas protesters setting up an encampment at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on May 5, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect
A Chicago-area man has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge he incurred last year for beating up Jewish pro-Israel students participating in a demonstration at DePaul University.
On Nov. 6, 2024, Adam Erkan, 20, approached Max Long and Michael Kaminsky in a ski mask while shouting antisemitic epithets and statements. He then attacked both students, fracturing Kaminsky’s wrist and inflicting a brain injury on Long, whom he pummeled into an unconscious state.
Law enforcement identified Erkan, who absconded to another location in a car, after his father came forward to confirm that it was his visage which surveillance cameras captured near the scene of the crime. According to multiple reports, the assailant avoided severer criminal penalties by agreeing to plead guilty to lesser offenses than the felony hate crime counts with which he was originally charged.
His accomplice, described as a man in his age group, remains at large.
“One attacker has now admitted guilt for brutally assaulting two Jewish students at DePaul University. That is a step toward justice, but it is nowhere near enough,” The Lawfare Project, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group which represented the Jewish students throughout the criminal proceedings, said in a statement responding to the plea deal. “The second attacker remains at large, and Max and Michael continue to experience ongoing threats. We demand — and fully expect — his swift arrest and prosecution to ensure justice for these students and for the Jewish community harmed by this antisemitic hate crime.”
Antisemitic incidents on US college campuses have exploded nationwide since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Just last month, members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter spilled blood and caused the hospitalization of at least one Jewish student after forcibly breaching a venue in which the advocacy group Students Supporting Israel had convened for an event featuring veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The former soldiers agreed to meet Students Supporting Israel (SSI) to discuss their experiences at a “private space” on campus which had to be reserved because the university denied the group a room reservation and, therefore, security personnel that would have been afforded to it. However, someone leaked the event location, leading to one of the most violent incidents of campus antisemitism in recent memory.
By the time the attack ended, three people had been rushed to a local medical facility for treatment of injuries caused by a protester’s shattering the glazing of the venue’s door with a drill bit, a witness, student Ethan Elharrar, told The Algemeiner during an interview.
“One of the individuals had a weapon he used, a drill bit. He used it to break and shatter the door,” Elharrar said. “Two individuals were transported to the hospital because of this. One was really badly cut all his arms and legs, and he had to get stitches. Another is afraid to publicly disclose her injuries because she doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
The previous month, masked pro-Hamas activists nearly raided an event held on the campus of Pomona College, based in Claremont, California, to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7. massacre.
Footage of the act which circulated on social media showed the group attempting to force its way into the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance.
Pomona College, working with its sister institutions in the Claremont consortium of liberal arts colleges in California (5C), later identified and disciplined some of the perpetrators and banned them from its campus.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, law enforcement personnel were searching for a man who trespassed the grounds of the Jewish Resource Center and kicked its door while howling antisemitic statements.
“F—k Israel, f—k the Jewish people,” the man — whom multiple reports describe as white, “college-age,” and possibly named “Jake” or “Jay” — screamed before running away. He did not damage the property, and he may have been accompanied by as many as two other people, one of whom shouted “no!” when he ran up to the building.
Around the same time, at Ohio State University, an unknown person or group tacked neo-Nazi posters across the campus which warned, “We are everywhere.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Lawmakers Advance Bill to Designate Muslim Brotherhood as Terrorist Organization
US Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) talks with reporters outside a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the US Capitol on Dec. 20, 2024. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, continuing a bipartisan push in Washington to combat the global Islamist network.
Members of the committee voted to approve the bill on a bipartisan basis, with every Republican and several Democrats supporting the measure just over a week after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to determine whether to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
Notably, the legislation would require the US government to proscribe the Islamist network globally, while Trump’s order more narrowly directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report “on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan.”
The legislation considered on Wednesday was spearheaded by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
“I am pleased that my bill to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood globally as a terrorist organization has been approved by the full committee. This is a step in the right direction and further amplifies other efforts, like those of President Trump, to take decisive action against this insidious threat,” Diaz-Balart said in a statement.
“I thank Chairman [Rep. Brian Mast] for his leadership and the committee for advancing this bill to protect US national security interests and Americans by prohibiting US dollars from enabling the Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous and pernicious activities while ensuring that MB members are blocked from entering the United States,” he continued.
Moskowitz similarly praised the committee for advancing the bill to a broader debate by the full House of Representatives.
“For decades, the Brotherhood has been tied to extremism and instability across the Middle East and around the world,” he said in a statement. “Other nations have already taken steps to investigate the Brotherhood and its affiliates, and the United States must have the authority to do the same.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational movement active in some 70 countries that preaches a vision of society governed by Sharia law, has been banned or designated as a terrorist group by several governments, including those in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has long been affiliated with the Brotherhood, drawing both ideological inspiration and even personnel from its ranks.
The US House version of the bill blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood, HR 4397, was introduced in July. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the companion Senate bill, S 2293, backed by a group of Republican co-sponsors. Together, the measures aim to push the president and secretary of state to identify the Brotherhood and all its branches worldwide as terrorist entities, a move that supporters say would close longstanding gaps in US counterterrorism policy and more closely align Washington’s stance with that of key Middle Eastern allies.
The legislation would expand the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 to explicitly include the Muslim Brotherhood, blocking its network from operating in the United States and imposing broad visa bans on individuals tied directly or indirectly to any of its global branches. The bill would require the State Department to map out every affiliated group worldwide and assess each for formal terrorist designation, effectively placing the entire Brotherhood ecosystem under unprecedented US scrutiny.
The measure outlines a direct connection between the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological infrastructure and the terrorist groups it has inspired, including Hamas, whose terrorist activity remains at the forefront of US, Israeli, and European security concerns. Counterterrorism experts argue that targeting the Muslim Brotherhood’s sprawling network is an overdue step to combat the roots of Islamist extremism.
A recent report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) found that Qatar has funneled roughly $20 billion into American schools and universities over five decades as part of a coordinated, 100-year project to embed Muslim Brotherhood ideologies in the US.
The 200-page report, unveiled in Washington, DC to members of Congress, chronicles a 50-year effort by Brotherhood-linked groups to embed themselves in American academia, civil society, and government agencies, exposing what ISGAP calls the Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad” strategy, while maintaining an agenda fundamentally at odds with liberal democratic values.
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Australia Sees Continued Surge in Antisemitic Attacks as Jewish Leaders Warn of Global Threat
Protesters gather to walk across the Sydney Harbor Bridge during the Palestine Action Group’s March for Humanity in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 3, 2025. Photo: AAP/Dean Lewins via REUTERS
Antisemitic incidents in Australia remained at “unprecedentedly high levels” over the past year, as the country’s Jewish community faced a relentless wave of hostility and targeted attacks, according to a new report released on Tuesday
The report, published by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), said the country recorded 1,654 antisemitic incidents during the 12-month period from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025.
Even though this figure marked a 20-percent drop from the previous year, it still represented about five times the annual average recorded in the decade before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Across the country, Jews and Israelis have reported a surge of anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitic incidents — from defaced murals and vandalized businesses to physical assaults and death threats.
Community leaders have warned that the wave of attacks has shown no signs of abating, fueled by rising tensions over the war in Gaza and what they described as the Australian government’s mounting hostility toward Israel.
Over the past year, the local Jewish community has suffered firebombings of synagogues, schools, and homes; threats from two nurses who allegedly planned to kill Jewish patients; and the discovery of a trailer packed with explosives, reportedly intended for a mass-casualty attack on a Sydney synagogue.
This fraught environment has only worsened following Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, further straining relations with the country’s Jewish community.
In one of the most recent controversies, the Stonnington City Council in Melbourne’s southeast delayed approval for a public menorah on Thursday, just days before Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, prompting outrage from Jewish leaders and local residents.
During a heated council debate, members voted to defer a motion to install a large public menorah — meaning it will not be set up in time for the Jewish holiday, which begins on Dec. 14 — sparking accusations of antisemitism and claims that the delay was a “ploy to shut it down.”
Following ECAJ’s newly released report, members of the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism decried the surge in antisemitic incidents, saying it reflects a global pattern that threatens Jewish communities worldwide.
The task force, which brings together major Jewish organizations from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, coordinates responses to rising anti‑Jewish hate.
For the first time ever, Jewish leaders from the world’s seven largest diaspora communities traveled to Sydney on Wednesday for the J7 Task Force Summit in Australia, coming together to address the rising tide of antisemitism in the country.
“What is happening in Australia is not an exception; it should be a wake-up call to communities worldwide,” Marina Rosenberg, senior vice president for International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement.
“Across North America, Europe and Latin America, Jewish communities are reporting the same pattern of unprecedented harassment, threats and incitement,” she continued. “When synagogues can be firebombed in Melbourne and Jews threatened and attacked in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Toronto, this is a threat not only to Jewish safety but to democratic stability itself.”
Among all J7 countries, Australia saw the sharpest rise in antisemitic incidents between 2021 and 2024, with the most serious attacks — including arson targeting synagogues, preschools, and other Jewish institutions — reaching record levels.
ECAJ’s report also warned of a dangerous convergence of ideological extremes, noting an “increasing ideological alignment” between neo-Nazis, the anti-Israel left, and Islamists in their “shared hatred of Jews and Zionists.”
According to the report, these groups are “more active, more emboldened” than ever in seeking to obstruct any initiative that challenges their antisemitism.
“We are now at a stage where anti-Jewish racism has left the fringes of society, where it is normalized and allowed to fester and spread, gaining ground at universities, in arts and culture spaces, in the health sector, in the workplace and elsewhere,” ECAJ President Daniel Aghion said in a statement.