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The Jewish Sport Report: A Jewish guide to the 2023 MLB season
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Good morning!
The men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments are both in the Sweet 16 round, and there’s one Jewish star on each side that you should know about.
Abby Meyers, who I profiled earlier this month, is a guard at No. 2 Maryland, helping the Terps win their first two games comfortably, knocking off No. 15 Holy Cross and No. 7 Arizona. Meyers grew up at a Reform synagogue in Washington, D.C., and has been involved with Jewish life on campus.
Over on the men’s side, No. 15 Princeton is perhaps the biggest surprise in either tournament. The Tigers stunned No. 2 Arizona in the opening round, and crushed No. 7 Missouri in the second round.
Sophomore guard Blake Peters, who dropped 17 points in the win over Missouri, and assistant coach Skye Ettin, both represented Team USA at the Maccabiah Games last summer. NJ.com called Peters “the most interesting man in the NCAA Tournament.”
And congrats to Jewish Sport Report follower (and my 2008 summer camp bunkmate) Josh Hurwitz, who is currently leading our reader bracket tournament!
All the Jewish players to watch in MLB this year
From left to right: Rowdy Tellez, Alex Bregman, Harrison Bader, Max Fried, Joc Pederson, Garrett Stubbs. (Getty Images; design by Mollie Suss)
Last season was a banner year for Jews in baseball — and this season could be even better.
From stars like Max Fried and Alex Bregman to rising talent like Harrison Bader and Dean Kremer — not to mention an impressive group of prospects on the verge of making their debuts — the current crop of Jewish MLB talent is unprecedented.
Team Israel’s roster in the World Baseball Classic this month also offered fans a preview of the next wave of Jewish stars — players such as Matt Mervis, Zack Gelof and Spencer Horwitz. Atlanta Braves top prospect Jared Shuster, who did not play for Team Israel, is having a stellar Spring Training and could emerge as a major league fixture this year. In fact, the Braves may begin the year with three Jews on the roster. Dayenu!
So with Opening Day approaching on Thursday, we’ve got you covered with a full Jewish preview of the 2023 MLB season.
Halftime report
CATCH YOU LATER. Team Israel leader and veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway officially announced his retirement from baseball this week, ending a journeyman career that included multiple stints with Israel and a World Series championship with the 2013 Boston Red Sox. (After meeting Ryan down in Miami, I can confirm he is a certified mensch.)
LEVIATHAN IN GOAL. The Buffalo Sabres signed 21-year-old goalie Devon Levi to a three-year entry-level contract. Levi just wrapped up an impressive run at Northeastern, where he won the Mike Richter Award for best collegiate goalie last season — and is a finalist again this year. Levi hails from the Dollard-des-Ormeaux suburb of Montreal, where he attended a Modern Orthodox school.
KICKIN’ IT. Obed Hrangchal won Israel’s kickboxing title last week. Hrangchal immigrated to Israel as part of India’s Bnei Menashe community — a group who claims descent from one of the lost tribes of Israel.
YOU ASK, WE ANSWER. Mikaela Shiffrin won her record 21st giant slalom this week, and her 88th career win overall, cementing her legacy as the greatest alpine skier ever. Every time Shiffrin is in the news, fans wonder whether she’s Jewish. The answer: not really. Shiffrin’s paternal grandfather was Jewish, but the tradition wasn’t passed down.
JUST KEEP SWIMMING. Speaking of Israeli victories, Shelly Bobritsky and Ariel Nassee became the first-ever Israelis to win a gold medal at the Artistic Swimming World Cup in Canada.
RED FLAG. A Jewish fan brought an Israeli flag and a sign with words of encouragement for Australian Football League Jewish player Harry Sheezel to a game — and was told his flag should have been confiscated. The fan says he was granted permission prior to the game, and accused the AFL of antisemitism.
Team Israel’s Twitter account was the real winner at the WBC
Avi Miller, right, ran Israel Baseball’s Twitter account during the 2023 World Baseball Classic. (Left: Screenshot from Twitter, Right: Courtesy)
Israel didn’t have much success at the World Baseball Classic this month in Miami, but off the field, the team’s Twitter account was a hit. From joking about storing a cooler of Manischewitz in the dugout to leaning into the “nice Jewish boy” vibe of the team, the account’s sense of humor seemed to resonate.
I spoke to Avi Miller, a marketing veteran and the man behind the puns. His goal for the account was aligned with that of the WBC itself: to grow the game.
“Of course virality is nice, because it creates more of a following. But then once you have a following, what are you doing with it?” Miller said. “So for me, and it’s even continued through today, and it will tomorrow and so on, is to create engagement with people, create interest in it, help to create and raise the fundraising efforts, help to create awareness of these programs.”
Bill Shaikin, an award-winning baseball writer for the Los Angeles Times, called the @ILBaseball page “the best social media account in the tournament.”
Read more about the Twitter account — and see some of its best jokes — right here.
Jews in sports to watch this weekend
IN BASKETBALL…
Blake Peters and Princeton face Creighton tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Abby Meyers and Maryland play Notre Dame tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. ET. Over in the NBA, Deni Avdija and the Washington Wizards host the San Antonio Spurs tonight at 7 p.m. ET and face the Toronto Raptors Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Ryan Turell and the Motor City Cruise host the Cleveland Charge tonight at 7 p.m. ET. The Cruise have won five straight and 12 of their last 15 games.
IN BASEBALL…
With Opening Day on Thursday, Max Fried is likely to get one more Spring Training start in this weekend. The Braves face the Minnesota Twins tomorrow and the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, both at 1:05 p.m. ET. Tonight at 9:05 p.m. ET, reliever Eli Morgan and the Cleveland Guardians face Joc Pederson and the San Francisco Giants.
IN HOCKEY…
Jakob Chychrun and the Ottawa Senators face off against Jack Hughes and the New Jersey Devils tomorrow at 7 p.m. ET. It is unclear when Devon Levi will make his NHL debut with the Buffalo Sabres, but one possibility is Monday, when his new team hosts his hometown Montreal Canadiens at 7 p.m. ET.
IN GOLF…
Max Homa is in Austin, Texas, this weekend for the World Golf Championships Dell Technologies Match Play. Homa seems locked in.
Schepping naches
Last but not least, mazel tov to Denver Jewish Day School for winning a basketball state championship earlier this month — becoming likely the third Jewish school in the United States to win a basketball state title, according to the Intermountain Jewish News. Well done!
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The post The Jewish Sport Report: A Jewish guide to the 2023 MLB season appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Everyone can be a war profiteer in Gaza or Iran, thanks to online betting markets
At any moment, an alert might pop up about a catastrophic world event. Maybe Israel has bombed Iran, or Iran has bombed Israel. Maybe the U.S. has bombed Iran’s nuclear programs, or its capital of Tehran. That’s the world we live in.
And, as long as things are so bad, you might as well profit on the start of World War III.
You may have noticed a sky-high number of ads for gambling sites. DraftKings, an online sports betting site, advertises during pretty much every game for every kind of sport. But the real game is on unregulated betting sites like Polymarket and Kalshi, where users can, from the comfort of their couches on their phones, bet on pretty much anything — what phrases Trump will use in his next social media post, or when the next snow will hit New York City.
Many of the bets are frivolous, but there’s a darker world. Betting on Middle Eastern geopolitics has become hot on the platform; the likelihood of the U.S. striking Iran is currently the top trending market on Polymarket, with $313 million wagered. Bets on Israel’s geopolitical moves are also hot.
Polymarket says its intent, “in gut-wrenching times like today,” is “to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society.” (Kalshi has fewer Middle Eastern betting markets — though not none.)
But it all seems rather ghoulish. Sure, war always leads to some profiteering, but the prediction markets have made profiting on death pretty literal. Over $3 million has been placed on dates Israel might strike Gaza in the month of February, with Polymarket users hotly debating what, exactly, counts as a strike and celebrating drone hits with the hope of a payout. One commenter posted that they’d heard a Palestinian man was killed on Feb. 16; “Let’s hope,” another excitedly replied.
People who wagered on Israel striking Gaza have already won on nine different days in February. Rates depend on the bet’s odds when placed; shares are priced between 1 cent and $1 based on the going odds, with a payout of $1 a share for a win. Based on February’s odds, most people doubled or tripled their money.
There’s a lot of fine print, however. Artillery fire does not qualify as a “strike,” according to the rules of the market. Neither does a ground or naval invasion. The rules are extensive and include the types of sources that can count as confirmation — government confirmation or “a consensus of credible reporting” is required. Reporting exclusively from Palestinian outlets seems not to count, making the resolution to each wager a fraught issue.
And the markets are easy to manipulate or game with insider information. Two Israelis — a civilian and a reservist — were charged by the IDF for betting on a geopolitical market based on classified information. And Israel is investigating this as a wider problem after one user on Polymarket cashed out on numerous correct bets related to Israel’s June 2025 strike on Iran.
Shayne Coplan, the founder of Polymarket, has called the site a “truth machine,” framing it as a source of knowledge on world events. And, in some ways, the markets do have access to a certain type of truth: public opinion. One market on Kalshi, worryingly, is betting on whether Nick Fuentes will become president in the next 20 years. His chances are currently sitting at 16%.
Yet the wisdom of public opinion is fallible. People can only make their best guesses based on public information, which can lead to big losses; users lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Romanian presidential election. Some traders, who make a living on Polymarket and Kalshi, rely on short delays in confirmation, managing to sneak in on a bet after news has happened but before it is officially confirmed. The best way to win, however, is insider information — without regulation, there’s nothing to prevent, say, Trump’s speechwriter from wagering on what topics the president will cover in his State of the Union.
Still, there are some zealots who will always bet on their favorite, though, no matter how bad the odds. The devout have put Jesus at a 4% chance of returning before the end of the year.
Everyone else is happy to bet against it. Sure, it’s a safe bet, but the “no” bettors still made a tidy 5.5% return last year.
The post Everyone can be a war profiteer in Gaza or Iran, thanks to online betting markets appeared first on The Forward.
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Why the Jews Survived When so Many Civilizations Collapsed
Pro-Israel demonstrators gathered at Bebelplatz in central Berlin on Nov. 30, 2025, before marching toward the Brandenburg Gate. Participants held Israeli flags and signs condemning rising antisemitism in Germany. Photo: Michael Kuenne/PRESSCOV/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Arnold Toynbee, the great 20th century historian, devoted his life to studying civilizations — how they rise, how they flourish, and then, inevitably, how they fall.
His conclusion was disarmingly simple: Civilizations rarely collapse because they are conquered from the outside. They collapse because they fail to adapt. They mistake their moment in the spotlight — even if it lasts for centuries — for permanence.
And almost always, that confidence attaches itself to a particular place — a city, a capital, a sacred center that seems to radiate eternity.
For the Aztecs, that center was Tenochtitlan — an island city rising out of Lake Texcoco. Majestic white temples gleamed in the sun, with the great central shrine, the Templo Mayor, dominating the skyline.
Priests in feathered headdresses moved through the sacred area with ritual precision. This was an empire utterly convinced that heaven and earth met right there — in the middle of its city.
Then, in 1519, a few hundred Spaniards appeared on the horizon. At their head was Hernán Cortés, a young, ambitious, calculating adventurer who had no interest in the Aztecs’ view of themselves as an eternal people. Within two years, Tenochtitlan was rubble. The sacred precinct was stripped — its stones repurposed to build churches.
Today, if you stand in Mexico City, you can see excavated fragments of the Templo Mayor beside traffic lights and fast-food stands. The empire that believed it stood at the center of the world survives only in stone, in memory, and in the scattered descendants of a civilization that long ago lost its sacred center.
It’s a similar story with the Incas — a civilization of perhaps 12 million people stretching down the western spine of South America. They, too, had their version of eternity. Their bustling center, brimming with wealth, was Cusco, in the Peruvian Andes. Their vast empire stretched across mountains, deserts, and jungles — all radiating outward from Cusco, which they called the “navel of the world.”
Then, in the 1530s, another small Spanish expedition arrived, this one led by Francisco Pizarro. The timing could not have been worse. A brutal civil war was already tearing the Inca empire apart. Smallpox — a disease carried unknowingly by Europeans — had spread ahead of them, weakening the Inca population and destabilizing their leadership.
But even that did not prepare the Incas for the ruthless rampage of the conquistadores. Pizarro seized the emperor, Atahualpa, holding him hostage until an enormous ransom room was filled with gold and silver. The ransom was delivered as promised, but Atahualpa was executed anyway, and by 1533, Cusco was in ruins.
As in Mexico, temples were stripped of their treasures, and the gold was melted down and dispatched to Spain. Churches rose where sun temples once stood. The imperial order that seemed as solid as Andean granite unraveled with astonishing speed.
And this is not just a story about the New World. It is the rhythm of history. Mesopotamia believed itself to be eternal. Assyria did. Egypt did. Greece did. Carthage did. Rome certainly did.
Each, in its moment, assumed it stood at the gravitational center of human civilization. And then it didn’t. Monuments rise. Architecture declares permanence. Believers insist: “We are not going anywhere.” And then the center of gravity moves. It always moves.
The Jewish story should have followed the same pattern. In fact, by any reasonable civilizational metric, we were the least likely people to survive.
We began in Egypt as slaves. We wandered through the desert. We settled in the Land of Israel. We split into two kingdoms. We were exiled by the Assyrians. Conquered by the Babylonians. Rebuilt. Destroyed again by the Romans. Scattered across continents. Ruled by ruthless powers we did not control, living under laws we did not write.
No nation in history has experienced so many shifts in its center of gravity. And yet — we are still here. The question is not only why – it is how. The answer, I think, begins in Parshat Terumah. Before there was even a single stone laid on the Temple Mount, we were given something else — a sacred center that was real, but not fixed.
At the beginning of Terumah, God commands the construction of a sanctuary — not a monumental edifice carved into mountains or anchored to bedrock, but something built of curtains and poles, rings and sockets, designed to be dismantled and rebuilt wherever the people found themselves.
You might imagine the Mishkan as a temporary solution — a stopgap until the “real” thing in Jerusalem could be constructed. But that is to misunderstand it entirely. The Mishkan was not a placeholder. It was a principle. Long before we had a permanent Temple, we were taught something far more revolutionary: Wherever you are, build Me a center there — and I will be among you. As the Torah puts it (Ex. 25:8): “Let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” Not in it — but among them.
The Temple in Jerusalem would later become the focal point of Jewish life. It was magnificent. It was the beating heart of the nation. Pilgrims streamed toward it three times a year. The Divine Presence rested there in revealed intensity.
And yet here is the astonishing fact: When the First Temple was destroyed, and the nation was exiled across the Persian Empire, we survived. When the Second Temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 CE, and the nation was scattered across the Roman world, we survived again.
Civilizations do not usually survive the destruction of their sacred center. The Aztec temples fell — and their world collapsed. Cusco fell — and the Inca nation unraveled. When Jerusalem fell, the Jewish people did not disappear. We regrouped. In Yavneh. In Sura. In Pumbedita. In Toledo. In Aleppo. In Frankfurt. In Warsaw. In Vilna. In New York. Even in Los Angeles!
The Temple may have been our center of gravity, but it was never the source of our gravity. That source had been implanted much earlier — in the wilderness — in the Mishkan.
The Mishkan precedes permanence. Long before we possessed a fixed center, we were taught how to create one that moves with us. Portable holiness was written into Jewish DNA. While other civilizations anchored holiness to geography, Judaism anchored holiness to covenant.
This does not diminish our longing for the Temple in Jerusalem. We pray daily for its rebuilding, and we turn toward Jerusalem in every Amidah. The Temple matters profoundly. But our survival without it proves something radical: God’s presence — and our identity as God’s people — was never confined to masonry.
The prophet Ezekiel, speaking in exile, refers to the synagogue as a מִקְדָּשׁ מְעַט — a miniature sanctuary (Ez. 11:16). In other words, a Mishkan. Wherever Jews gathered — in Babylon or Spain, in Poland or America — the portable sanctuary reappeared. In a synagogue. In a study hall. Around a Shabbat table. And God dwelt in our midst.
Which is why it is no accident that our first national sanctuary was made of curtains and poles, dismantled and reconstructed again and again over 40 years of wandering. Exile was written into the Jewish story from the beginning — but so was the architecture of survival.
And so today, as the global center of gravity threatens to shift yet again, the Jewish people remain what we have always been: a nation capable of carrying its center with it.
Wherever Jews gather — in Los Angeles, New York, London, Sydney, in a grand synagogue or a makeshift minyan in a dorm room, a hospital ward, or even a military base — if there is prayer, if there is Torah, if there is yearning for God — then God dwells among us.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Qatar’s Olympic Ambitions: Soft Power Meets Hard Questions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
As athletes gather in Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics, an unusual presence should be sparking concern. Over 100 Qatari public security officers, along with 20 camouflage SUVs and three snowmobiles, arrived in Italy this month to help safeguard the Winter Games, though the country has no athletes competing.
The presence of US Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) officials in Italy has drawn much of the flack around the Olympic security forces. But on a global level, it’s the chasm between Qatar’s carefully cultivated image and its actual conduct that deserves greater scrutiny.
The Qatar contingent’s arrival in Milan – marked by the Qatari military cargo plane hitting a lighting tower upon landing – is the latest example of Doha’s expanding role in global sports event security. That role reflects a calculated strategy to position the small energy-rich Gulf state as securing global cultural events while obscuring a troubling record of supporting Islamic fundamentalism.
Qatar has put in a lot of effort – and cash – to look like a solid Western ally, a respectable citizen of the world. But a closer look at the protection Doha has provided for terrorists over decades indicates that the respectability goes no deeper than a chicken costume worn by a fox – and is likely to prove at least as dangerous.
Qatar has made clear its interest in the soft power of global sporting events. In January, Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani became president of the Olympic Council of Asia, and Qatar is bidding for the 2036 summer Olympics after hosting the men’s FIFA World Cup in 2022.
Those upstanding roles on the global scene run in parallel to blatant support of antisemitism. As Italy prepared for the Games, Qatar hosted the Web Summit tech conference, which showcased the creator of a new social media platform who told the audience he doesn’t need to rely on “Zionist money” and deployed the classic antisemitic trope that Jews control the media.
Corruption scandals abound, with Qatar standing accused of buying its way into hosting the World Cup. Former FIFA vice president Reynald Temarii was banned by soccer’s world governing body for eight years for accepting hundreds of thousands of euros from a Qatari billionaire, and was indicted by France in 2023 on charges of entering into a 2010 pact to support Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Qatari media also plays a part, with France investigating the role that a $400 million deal between FIFA and Al Jazeera, the flagship network of Qatar’s powerful media arm, may have played in the country’s selection as host.
Qatar’s support for terrorism goes back at least to the pre-9/11 era. Qatar has regularly been in the business of moving money to terror organizations, and was an early supporter of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, broadcasting his exhortations on Al Jazeera. Top Qatari government officials are thought to have tipped off 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allowing him to escape an FBI manhunt years before, when he was being investigated for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and plots to blow up international flights.
He was not the only terrorist the country accommodated. In 2013, Doha also became a safe haven for leaders of the Taliban, where they stayed as honored guests living in luxury even after exploratory peace talks with the US broke down, and of course for top Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, Khalil al-Hayya, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Qatari officials have expressed support for Hamas, with the mother of the emir eulogizing the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel. Members of Qatar’s Shura Council declared that the events of Oct. 7 were merely a “preview.”
In another bid for an international leadership role, Qatar recently became a member of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza Executive Board, in one of the Gulf state’s latest attempts to build its reputation as a global keeper of the peace. But Qatar is not a neutral mediator. Giving Qatar a role in the future of Gaza means giving a role to a group that will likely support Hamas’s continued influence over Gaza. This is antithetical to Middle Eastern stability, which requires Hamas to be disarmed and removed from power. Giving Qatar a role perpetuates terrorism and corruption, and puts the security of the Middle East, the US, and the world at risk.
Qatar – which exports more liquefied natural gas than any other country and is one of the richest nations on earth – has managed to maintain good ties with the West, however, in part through the purchase of influence. For example, the US recently announced it will allow Qatar to build an Air Force facility in Idaho, and Doha is a major backer of US think tanks, universities, and politi
Soccer fields and ski slopes may seem like innocent enough playgrounds in which to let Doha romp. But such involvement only allows Qatar to polish its image and extend its influence, letting it build more empty legitimacy of the sort that allows it to be included in the Gaza peacekeeping force. Let’s also not forget that enabling Qatar to bill itself as a safeguard of international sporting events means that a committed sponsor of global terror is actively working to develop a reputation as a protector of some of the world’s most prominent terror targets. Before accepting the next offer of cash from Qatar or inviting the country to participate in peacekeeping activities, it’s well worth considering whether it’s really such a good idea to keep letting the fox guard the henhouse.
Dr. Ariel Admoni is a researcher specializing in Qatari policy at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.