RSS
The Jewish Sport Report: All the Jews to watch in the NFL this season
This article was sent as a newsletter. Sign up for our weekly Jewish sports newsletter here.
Hello and happy September! It’s been a solid season for Orthodox pitching prospect Jacob Steinmetz, who notched the first win of his professional career this week with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Single-A affiliate, the Visalia Rawhides.
A Washington Post story details how the 20-year-old is navigating minor league life as an Orthodox Jew — from flying in kosher food from Los Angeles to walking to the ballpark on Shabbat.
Your Jewish guide to the new NFL season
From left: Michael Dunn, Jake Curhan, Greg Joseph and A.J. Dillon. (Getty Images/Design by Mollie Suss)
Football fans rejoice: Week 1 of the NFL season kicks off Thursday night.
As the season gets underway, there are four Jewish players to watch, plus a few free agents and other Jewish storylines to keep an eye on, too.
Here are the Jewish players starting the season on NFL rosters:
Jake Curhan, Seattle Seahawks offensive tackle
A.J. Dillon, Green Bay Packers running back
Michael Dunn, Cleveland Browns offensive lineman
Greg Joseph, Minnesota Vikings kicker
Read our full NFL season preview right here.
Halftime report
GOLDEN. Israel won two gold medals at the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Spain last weekend, including in the all-around group category — the country’s first-ever gold medal at the tournament. “We are really happy that we managed to get this medal and that we got the chance to scream out the anthem from the podium,” said team captain Romi Paritzki.
BANNED. Iran banned one of its weightlifters for life after he shook hands with an Israeli athlete at the 2023 World Master Weightlifting Championships in Poland.
MORE THAN A GAME. In 1983, campers from a Canadian Jewish summer camp played a basketball game against a group of kids who had been students of a notorious Holocaust denier. Forty years later, the experience remains formative for Hart Snider, who created a short film and comic book memoir about it. Snider recently returned to the camp to mark the anniversary of the game.
THANKS? Jewish golfer Max Homa is set to participate in his first Ryder Cup later this month, the biennial competition featuring teams from the United States and Europe. When the U.S. team was announced this week, Zach Johnson also jokingly named Homa the “prom king” of the squad — an honor that was met with confused excitement from the No. 7-ranked PGA golfer.
ENOUGH ALREADY. Israeli UFC fighter Natan Levy told TMZ he is constantly fending off antisemitic messages online, including a lot of Holocaust denial. (Levy recently challenged one online troll to a fight.)
YUM. The iconic Katz’s Deli announced that it is partnering with WNBA superstar Sabrina Ionescu on a new “Triple Double Stacker Sandwich” featuring corned beef, brisket and pastrami, in honor of Ionescu’s three triple-doubles in one season and her new Nike shoe — the company’s first-ever unisex signature shoe collection. (Ionescu is not Jewish.)
Is the pen mightier than the bat?
Veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway wrote a children’s book about his experience playing for Team Israel. (Getty; book page courtesy of Ryan Lavarnway)
Ryan Lavarnway, a journeyman catcher who played for eight teams across 10 MLB seasons, officially retired from professional baseball earlier this year. In addition to his new role as a Colorado Rockies TV analyst, Lavarnway just released a children’s book about how playing for Team Israel brought him closer to Judaism.
The book follows Lavarnway’s baseball journey from childhood to the pros, and it explores how an offer to play for Israel changed both his career and his life.
“When I played for the World Baseball Classic team in 2017, that was a really life changing experience for me,” Lavarnway told me. “I didn’t feel a huge connection to my Judaism, to any religion, to the community at all. Through playing for Team Israel, I felt that for the first time.”
Read more about the new book here.
Jews in sports to watch this weekend
IN THE U.S. OPEN…
The U.S. Open is underway in New York, and a few Jewish (or Jewish-adjacent) players are still in the fight. Aslan Karatsev, who was born in Russia but moved to Israel at 3 years old, faces Ben Shelton today at 12:15 p.m. ET in the third round of men’s singles. Ukrainian star Elina Svitolina, who had a Jewish grandmother, faces Jessica Pegula in the third round tomorrow, tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. ET. Madison Brengle, Camila Giorgi and Diego Schwartzman — who has been in a rough stretch lately — all lost in the first round.
IN BASEBALL…
Max Fried takes the mound for his Atlanta Braves tonight at 10:10 p.m. ET against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Harrison Bader, who was cut by the Yankees and then picked up by the Cincinnati Reds this week, could debut for his new team in their series against the Chicago Cubs. Garrett Stubbs and the Philadelphia Phillies take on Rowdy Tellez and the Milwaukee Brewers, while Zack Gelof and the Oakland Athletics face the Los Angeles Angels and reliever Kenny Rosenberg.
IN SOCCER…
Manor Solomon and Tottenham face Burnley Saturday at 10 a.m. ET, while Matt Turner and Nottingham Forest take on Chelsea at the same time. Solomon hasn’t seen much playing time in Tottengam’s Premier Leagues matches, but the Israeli forward played 81 minutes during Tuesday’s EFL Cup game against his old squad, Fulham. Turner, meanwhile, has started all three games for Nottingham, saving 73.7% of shots so far.
IN RACING…
Lance Stroll is on the grid for this weekend’s Formula One Italian Grand Prix, Sunday at 9 a.m. ET. The Aston Martin driver has been confirmed to keep his seat for next season.
Hoops for a cause
Children participate in a basketball clinic in Philadelphia, Aug. 27, 2023. (Courtesy of Jared Armstrong)
Last weekend, Jewish basketball player Jared Armstrong, who plays professionally in Israel, ran a free clinic in Philadelphia to promote Black-Jewish relations. Here’s a photo from Armstrong’s camp. For more, check out this interview Armstrong did with Philly’s local ABC News affiliate during the event.
—
The post The Jewish Sport Report: All the Jews to watch in the NFL this season appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
RSS
Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
RSS
Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.