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The Jewish Sport Report: 18 Jewish players in the MLB is a likely — and fitting — record
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Good afternoon, Jewish sports fans!
Few families had as exciting a week as the Gelofs did. On Sunday, Jake Gelof, a power-hitting third baseman from the University of Virginia, was drafted 60th overall by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the MLB Draft. (More on him and the other Jewish draftees below).
Then on Wednesday, older brother Zack Gelof, another UVA alum who was drafted (also 60th overall!) by the Oakland Athletics in 2021, received the news every young ballplayer dreams of: he’s being promoted to the big league club.
Zack, who played for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year, will become the 18th Jewish player to appear in the MLB this year — a likely record.
What a way to start the second half of the season! Mazel tov to the Gelof fam.
Meet Daniel Edelman, rising MLS superstar
At just 20, Jewish player Daniel Edelman is a rising star for the New York Red Bulls. (Courtesy New York Red Bulls)
New York Red Bulls midfielder Daniel Edelman is only 20 years old, but his star has already risen considerably in the past year.
Edelman won the Red Bulls’ Newcomer of the Year award last season. Then, as captain of the under-20 U.S. Men’s National Team, he led the team to the quarterfinals at the under-20 World Cup in Argentina in May. He was also selected as one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 to Watch” for 2023.
This past weekend, Edelman received an honor befit for a hero: the team held a Marvel Night at Red Bull Arena and gave away an Edelman bobblehead inspired by a “Guardians of the Galaxy” character.
“It’s really exciting,” Edelman told my colleague Lisa Keys. “It’s my second season with the team, and to have a bobblehead made of me is pretty cool. This is a team I grew up looking up to, admiring all the players.”
Read our profile of the soccer star here.
Halftime report
SOLOMON’S NEW KINGDOM. Israeli soccer phenom Manor Solomon has signed a five-year contract with Premier League powerhouse Tottenham, a club with a rich (and at times controversial) Jewish history. The team’s fanbase, which has historically included many Jews, has called itself the “Yid army.”
ROAD TEAM. A team of 14 baseball players from the North Israel Little League are traveling to Kutno, Poland, today to represent Israel in the Little League World Series qualifiers. This is Israel’s first appearance in the tournament. “When I look at this team, I see what Israel should be,” team manager David Weiss said in a press release.
UNBOXING. The Los Angeles Times announced this week that it would stop posting box scores in its sports section — a change that upset many Jewish fans who rely on the paper for sports news on Shabbat. The Forward has the story. (Plus, The New York Times announced it would shutter its sports section and instead focus on its coverage in The Athletic.)
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE. In the pantheon of sports executives, Adam Neuman is a rising star. After a stint as chief of staff for strategy and operations at the Big Ten Conference, Neuman is returning to his hometown to serve in a similar role with the Baltimore Ravens.
FULL COURT PRESS. New Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia, who purchased the team late last year, has already had an impact in the organization. According to ESPN, Ishbia “has let it be known how he is going to run the Suns: aggressively and from the front.”
Meet the 2023 Jewish MLB Draft class
Jake Gelof, left, and Zach Levenson, right, headline the group of Jewish players drafted into MLB in 2023. (Getty Images)
Over 600 baseball players were drafted across 20 rounds of the MLB Draft this week — and six of them are Jewish.
There’s the aforementioned Jake Gelof, who just set the all-time home run record at UVA.
Then there’s outfielder Zach Levenson (158th), who was ranked 204th in MLB’s prospect rankings, plus Lucas Braun (189th), RJ Schreck (277th), Ben Simon (396th) and Will King (609th).
Meet all six draftees right here.
Jews in sports to watch this weekend
IN BASEBALL…
Dean Kremer takes the mound for the Baltimore Orioles against the Miami Marlins tonight at 7:05 p.m. ET. Jake Bird and the Colorado Rockies face Harrison Bader and the New York Yankees tonight at 8:40 p.m. ET. Zack Gelof is likely to make his major league debut as his Oakland A’s host the Minnesota Twins tonight at 9:40 p.m. ET.
IN SOCCER…
Daniel Edelman and the NY Red Bulls host Real Salt Lake tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. ET. Manor Solomon and his new club Tottenham begin their preseason friendly matches Tuesday at 6 a.m. ET against West Ham.
IN GOLF…
Max Homa is across the pond this weekend for the Scottish Open, while Ben Silverman is competing at The Ascendant tournament in Colorado.
Highlights from the JCC Maccabi Games
The victorious under-17 boys soccer team at the JCC Maccabi Games (Courtesy of JCC Association)
The JCC Maccabi Games wrapped up this week, where 74 delegations of more than 1,000 Jewish teens from 10 countries competed for four days in Israel.
A mixed team of athletes from Morocco, Ukraine, Israel, Washington and Indiana won a gold medal in under-17 boys soccer — despite speaking four different languages. In swimming, a pair of Ukrainian teens won gold. And now that the competition is over, teens will spend time touring Israel on an educational program.
Congrats to all the medal winners!
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The post The Jewish Sport Report: 18 Jewish players in the MLB is a likely — and fitting — record appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.