RSS
The Jewish Sport Report: The future of Jewish sports is brighter than ever
This article was sent as a newsletter. Sign up for our weekly Jewish sports newsletter here.
Hello there! Do you live in New York or know a sports fan who does? Come meet the team behind the Jewish Sport Report at a Nets game next week!
We are offering an exciting $62 package that includes: a ticket to the Brooklyn Nets preseason game against Israeli team Maccabi Ra’anana on Thursday, Oct. 12; a ticket to the Nov. 12 regular season matchup between the Nets and Deni Avdija’s Washington Wizards; and a special Israeli Heritage Night Brooklyn Nets hat.
You can grab tickets here — see you there!
Meet JTA’s 36 Jewish Student Athletes to Watch
Clockwise from top left: Ben Saraf, Lacie Saltzmann, Audrey Schildkraut, Ariel Brunfman, Elie Kligman, Lilah Grubman, Nelson Vickar, Maia Weintraub and Sam Salz. (Design by Mollie Suss)
The future of the Jewish sports world is in good hands.
You may have seen our list of JTA’s 36 Jewish Students Athletes to Watch, which we announced earlier this week. It’s an exciting group — there are Olympians, pro athletes, Division I stars and international champions. And they’re all in high school or college.
If you’re an avid Jewish Sport Report reader (we hope you are!), you may know some of their names already — like Elie Kligman, who was drafted into the MLB in 2021, or Sam Salz, the Orthodox Jew who walked onto the vaunted Texas A&M football team.
But there are lots of athletes on the list whose names you should know. Ava Brenner has won six junior national karate championships. JJ Harel broke a 42-year high jump record. Alexis Blokhina has already trained with Venus Williams. Maia Weintraub is the No. 4 ranked women’s foil fencer in the United States. Jake Retzlaff could become the first Jewish starting QB at BYU.
Meet all 36 athletes here — and prepare to be impressed!
Halftime report
DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT. A hockey player at the University of Michigan was booted from the top-ranked team after he and another varsity athlete were implicated in an incident of anti-LGBTQ vandalism outside a Jewish center on campus. The school’s Jewish Resource Center has declined to press charges against the students, who made a public apology at a Shabbat dinner.
WHO BY FIRE(D). Speaking of unexpected exits, the San Francisco Giants fired Jewish manager Gabe Kapler last week after four seasons with the club. Kapler had won the 2021 National League Manager of the Year award after a 107-win season. The league’s other Jewish skipper, Bob Melvin, will remain in his role with the San Diego Padres — despite many predictions that he’d also be out of a job.
NOT TOO SHABBY. Team Israel finished in sixth place in the European Baseball Championship, which included games just before and just after Yom Kippur to accommodate the team’s religious players. Israel went 3-3 in the tournament, including a 14-1 blowout win over Switzerland and a rough 12-2 loss to the Netherlands. Israel will host the 2025 tournament.
OUCH. Israeli soccer star Manor Solomon will be out at least a couple months after tearing his meniscus during a practice with his Premier League club Tottenham. The injury means Solomon will miss Israel’s next four Euro 2024 qualifying matches — the national team is set to face Switzerland and Kosovo next week and Romania and Andorra in November.
FREE STUFF! The Washington Wizards announced its promotional schedule for the upcoming NBA season, and Israeli player Deni Avdija is set to have a big week in late January. On Jan. 24, Wizards fans will receive a hat designed by the 22-year-old, and on Jan. 31, they’ll get a bobblehead celebrating the small forward’s fashion sense.
Jews in sports to watch this weekend
IN BASEBALL…
The Division Series playoffs start Saturday, and four of the eight teams still in contention have a Jewish player (or two!). Here’s the schedule — and some notes — for this weekend:
Saturday at 1 p.m. ET: The Baltimore Orioles host the Texas Rangers. The O’s have not announced their rotation yet, but Dean Kremer is likely to start later in the series. It will be the Team Israel alum’s postseason debut. Game 2 is Sunday at 4:07 p.m. ET.
Saturday at 4:45 p.m. ET: The Houston Astros host the Minnesota Twins. Alex Bregman has played in a (ridiculous) 86 playoff games in his career and is in the all-time top-10 in postseason RBIs, walks and runs scored. The 29-year-old is already a 2-time World Series champion. Game 2 is Sunday at 8:03 p.m. ET.
Saturday at 6:07 p.m. ET: The Atlanta Braves host the Philadelphia Phillies. For the Braves, ace Max Fried is slated to return from his stint on the injured list and start Game 2 on Monday. Braves outfielder Kevin Pillar will be playing in his first postseason since 2016. For the Phillies, catcher Garrett Stubbs has appeared in the last three postseasons — last year with Philly and the previous two with Houston — but has yet to have an at-bat.
IN FOOTBALL…
It’s Week 5 in the NFL — here are the Jewish matchups to watch:
Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET: Greg Joseph and the Minnesota Vikings host Taylor Swift’s new favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs.
Monday at 8:15 p.m. ET: A.J. Dillon and the Green Bay Packers face the Las Vegas Raiders.
(Jake Curhan’s Seattle Seahawks and Michael Dunn’s Cleveland Browns both have byes this week.)
IN BASKETBALL…
The NBA Preseason is here! This weekend, catch Domantas Sabonis, the All-Star big man who is converting to Judaism, and his Sacramento Kings against the Toronto Raptors Sunday at 8 p.m. ET
IN HOCKEY…
As the NHL Preseason wraps up, watch Devon Levi and the Buffalo Sabres against Mark Friedman and the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight at 7 p.m. ET. At the same time, Jack Hughes and the New Jersey Devils face the New York Islanders. And tonight at 10 p.m. ET, Quinn Hughes and the Vancouver Canucks host the Calgary Flames.
IN SOCCER…
Goalkeeper Matt Turner and Nottingham Forest play Crystal Palace tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET. ICYMI, check out our profile of the Jewish USMNT member here. Over in the MLS, Daniel Edelman and the New York Red Bulls play Toronto F.C. tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Join the Jewish Sport Report in Chicago!
The Cubs and White Sox may not be playing in the postseason, but the Jewish Sport Report is headed to Chicago for an important matchup later this month. On Oct. 23, I’ll be sitting down with an all-star panel of Jewish baseball experts to talk all things baseball and Chicago. Come join us!
We’ll see you next week, and in the meantime, ponder this: which is taller? A rabbi holding a lulav or 7-foot-4 NBA prodigy Victor Wembanyama?
—
The post The Jewish Sport Report: The future of Jewish sports is brighter than ever appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7
Michelle Shalmiev was born in a village in the Caucasian mountains and immigrated to Israel and settled on a kibbutz when she was 14. Her series “Putting Your Stamp on History” […]
The post Treasure Trove: An Israeli stamp reflects the complex mix of emotions about Oct. 7 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News
Printable obituaries of eight Canadian victims and more of our original coverage.
The post Download a special Oct. 7 print edition of The Canadian Jewish News appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen addressing supporters, in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Reuters.
JNS.org – This Oct. 7 will not only be an anniversary of tears, of pure contrition, even if the memory is burning as the people of Israel live. As to how, it wasn’t at all obvious. Our whole history is made of miracles—from the splitting of the sea to escape from the Egyptians to the Inquisition to the pogroms to the thousand other genocidal attacks to which the Jews have been subjected. In every case, the results are always incredible and surprising, especially for how we have emerged active, faithful to our Torah tradition and committed to the return to Jerusalem until we made it happen.
The War of Independence in 1948 was fought by concentration-camp veterans, yet we defeated all the Arab armies, united in hatred, who marched against us. Later, in 1967, 1973 wars were won by a hair’s breadth with miraculous strokes of imagination and leaders who gave birth to ideas that people would have expected. No one would have ever bet a euro, penny or shekel on the idea that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his entire hierarchy could be eliminated, petrifying Iran, especially since we have already reduced its other favorite proxy, Hamas, to pieces. And now we have bombed Iran’s other proxy, the Houthis, some 2,000 kilometers away, destroying the airport from which they receive their weapons and aid from the ayatollahs. The Islamic Republic’s leader, Ali Khamenei, is reportedly hiding underground, the Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ites are waiting to see if they are next, and cities controlled by Tehran are shaking.
As President Joe Biden said, it is a measure of justice, but one that Israel has undertaken in an impossible fashion, defending its citizens amid a thousand prohibitions with determination and without fear. Only in this way can a 76-year-old young state, which has been attacked from all sides, defend itself. The country’s existence is the latest chapter in the history of a people born many millennia ago in the Land of Israel, who are finally back home and defending their state.
The war is certainly not over, as Hezbollah reportedly had 100,000 fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he must see this fight through to the end, despite the international pressure to which Israel has been subjected for nearly a year. Israel’s leadership understands that its very existence is at definitive risk if there is no “new Middle East” in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
While previous generations and Israeli leaders hoped that peace agreements would establish peace in the region, today’s leaders know that there is also a need for battle to stop those who, dominated by absurd fanatical and religious beliefs, wish to kill you. (After all, what do the Houthi rebels in Yemen have to do with the Jews and Israel?)
This is the lesson of our time—not just for Israel and the Jewish people but for everyone. The Jewish people are writing a new page in history, one in which the free world must write and fight alongside them, as it is a battle for the survival of Western ideals. Israel has eliminated the two most dangerous terrorist groups in the world—Hamas and Hezbollah—with operations that will set a precedent for decades. And it challenges Iran. I would like to hear the applause, please.
The post The Jewish People Perform Another Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.