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Veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway pens children’s book about how playing for Israel brought him closer to Judaism
(JTA) — When Ryan Lavarnway joined Team Israel for the World Baseball Classic in 2017, the journeyman catcher chose jersey no. 36 not because of the number stitched onto the back, but because the shirt fit him best.
But in the years since that tournament, any time Lavarnway has represented Israel, he’s stuck with 36, which holds meaning as a multiple of 18, a number that signifies life in Jewish tradition.
That choice is emblematic of Lavarnway’s experience with Team Israel, one that he says has changed his life. It’s also the inspiration for a new children’s book, which hits shelves today, written by the recently retired member of the 2013 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.
In “Baseball and Belonging,” illustrated by Chris Brown, Lavarnway chronicles his life, athletic career and how a call from Israel’s burgeoning baseball program helped him find his Judaism.
“When I played for the WBC team in 2017, that was a really life changing experience for me,” Lavarnway, 36, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “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.”
In the book, Lavarnway wrote that growing up in an interfaith family — his mother is Jewish and his father is Catholic — left him feeling lost.
“His parents let him choose his path,” Lavarnway writes early in the book, which is narrated in rhyme in the third person. “They said, ‘You can be either.’ But thinking he was half and half made him feel like he was neither.”
When Israel recruited him to join the 2017 team — the WBC allows players to represent countries where they are eligible for citizenship — Lavarnway writes that it was “the answer to his dreams.”
He tells the story of Israel’s Cinderella run in that tournament, during which the team won its first four games, all against higher-ranked countries. Lavarnway was named MVP of Israel’s group in the first round. The team exited the tournament in the second round after a loss to Japan.
In the book, Lavarnway also shares his experience traveling to Israel for the first time with the team, including illustrations of his visits to famous sites like the Western Wall, the Dead Sea and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
He writes about meeting Israeli kids — who he says treated the players like superstars — and playing in front of Jewish fans. “By representing Israel, Ryan played for something more,” he writes.
At the end of the book, Lavarnway includes three pages of information about Israel, its baseball program and sites the book mentions.
“Playing with Team Israel, was just the very start,” reads the last page of the book. “Ryan found where he belonged, on the field and in his heart.”
Much like Lavarnway’s journey to Team Israel, his experience writing his first book was not a straightforward one. The idea first began when Lavarnway participated in Q&A sessions surrounding the 2018 documentary “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel,” about the team’s unexpected success in the previous year’s WBC.
Audience members encouraged Lavarnay to share his story of learning about Israel, meeting its citizens and discovering his connection to Judaism, and he began speaking on college campuses.
“I think that’s a great audience to hear it because college students are deciding who they want to be and deciding who they want to develop as their community,” Lavarnway said. “It’s a really transformational time of their lives. And this was a really transformational experience.”
From there, he received a suggestion from his rabbi, the popular Jewish musician and rabbi Joe Black, who leads a Reform congregation in Denver, where Lavarnway lives: why not turn his story into a children’s book?
Lavarnway had never written a book before, much less a kids’ one. So just like facing a new pitcher for the first time, it took a few tries to get it right.
Catcher Ryan Lavarnway, right, enjoys a moment during a pregame warmup with Israel’s bullpen coach Alon Leichman, in Brooklyn, New York, Sept. 22, 2016. (Hillel Kuttler)
Lavarnway began work on the book in early 2021. His first few drafts were turned away by publishers, and he put the project aside.
Then he and his wife, who is also Jewish, had a daughter.
“I was reading stories to her at night, and I found a few that I gravitated towards, that I read the same books over and over because I really loved them,” Lavarnway said. “And I started to pay attention to the structure of the book, and then I had a lightbulb moment of, ‘Oh, mine is nothing like this.’ Which means that my book was probably not very good — the first two iterations of it.”
After becoming more familiar with the structure and rhyme schemes of the children’s books he enjoyed, he took another crack at his own. He said the key was simplifying the story.
“I think the concept of religion is over most children’s heads, especially the younger audience,” Lavarnway said. “But what they can relate to, and what is universal, is doing what you love and feeling loved. If I really had to boil down the message, that’s what it is: doing what you love, and finding somewhere where you can feel loved.”
Lavarnway said when he first joined Team Israel in 2017, he did so because “it was an amazing baseball opportunity.” The catcher played for eight Major League teams from 2011-2021 in a career that saw him move between the majors and the minors, and he played 25 regular season games for Boston in their 2013 championship season.
After his experience in the 2017 WBC, Lavarnway would go on to play for Team Israel in the 2020 Olympics — for which he obtained Israeli citizenship — and the 2023 WBC, in which Israel won one game before eventually being eliminated. He will suit up again for Israel at the European Championships next month.
Peter Kurz, the general manager of Team Israel who first recruited Lavarnway in 2017, said he has been “a tremendous inspiration to Israeli players for the last seven years.” Kurz receives his own cameo in the book and gets high praise in the acknowledgements, where Lavarnway writes that the GM gave him “an experience that changed my life.”
Kurz called Lavarnway “a true team leader” and “true friend,” and said he named the catcher as Team Israel’s first official captain two months ago. Upon Lavarnway’s retirement in March, Kurz said that when his playing days are over, the veteran would be welcome as a coach for Team Israel.
“All that I can say is that Ryan was the ultimate professional, going about his work in a joyful and experienced manner,” Kurz told JTA earlier this year. “He was and is dedicated to Team Israel and was our ultimate warrior. But he was also warm and funny and emotional, and those are wonderful traits.”
Lavarnway said playing for Team Israel has taken on meaning beyond his love of the game itself.
“It’s no longer a baseball opportunity for me at all,” he said. “I don’t have a future in playing the game, but I’m so excited to be a member of this team, and what we’ve done with the program and with the whole sport in the country.”
As his debut book is released, Lavarnway isn’t sure if he has a future as a writer. He recently joined the Colorado Rockies’ broadcast team, where he offers analysis during pre- and post-game coverage. He also speaks at schools and synagogues.
“I don’t know that I’ll make a habit out of making children’s books,” he said. “But this felt like something I needed to do.”
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The post Veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway pens children’s book about how playing for Israel brought him closer to Judaism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UN Data: Nearly 90 Percent of Gaza Aid ‘Intercepted’ Before Reaching Intended Recipients
Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients, newly released data from the United Nations shows, fueling growing concerns among Israeli officials and international observers about systemic aid diversion by armed groups in the enclave.
According to figures tracking humanitarian assistance for Gaza from May 19 to Aug. 1 of this year, out of the 2,010 UN trucks (carrying 27,434 tons of aid) collected from any of the crossings along Gaza’s perimeter, only 260 trucks (4,111 tons) reached their intended destination. That equates to a staggering 87 percent of all trucks and 85 percent of all tonnage of aid being stolen and not getting into the hands of civilians at the intended destination.
The UN’s own data, posted on the website of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) as part of the “UN2720 Monitoring & Tracking Dashboard,” reveals that almost all the aid — 1,753 trucks (23,353 tons) — has been “intercepted, either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors” while being transported inside Gaza over the past few months.
No breakdown is provided of how much aid has been seized by armed groups versus civilians.
The data also shows that much of the UN aid offloaded at any of the crossings along Gaza’s perimeter has not been collected to enter the war-torn enclave during this period. Out of 40,012 tons of aid (2,134 trucks) being delivered to the crossings, just 27,434 tons (2010 trucks) have been picked up. It’s unclear what exactly led to this discrepancy, with issues such as poor internal coordination and security concerns potentially delaying aid shipments.
The UN2720 mechanism, created earlier this year, was intended to boost transparency by verifying and tracking aid shipments via QR codes at key checkpoints. The system monitors each pallet from offloading to delivery and flags any discrepancies in a centralized database.
Israel has facilitated the entry of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza, with Israeli officials condemning the UN and other international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies, noting much of the humanitarian assistance has been stalled at border crossings or stolen by the ruling Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On Sunday, Israel announced a halt in military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza and new aid corridors as Arab and European countries began airdropping supplies into the enclave.
However, the UN and several Western governments have increased pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, blaming the Jewish state for what they described as a hunger crisis and insufficient amounts of aid reaching civilians.
Israeli officials have said that claims of mass starvation in Gaza are false and being amplified by not only Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, but also international humanitarian organizations and media organizations to manipulate global opinion.
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Dutch Nurse Under Police Investigation for Alleged Threats Against Israeli Patients
Pro-Hamas demonstrators march in the Dutch city of Nijmegen. Photo: Reuters/Romy Arroyo Fernandez
A Muslim nurse in the Netherlands is under police investigation after allegedly threatening to administer lethal injections to Israeli patients — an incident that has sparked public outrage and intensified fears over rising antisemitism and patient safety in Europe’s health-care systems.
The comments were widely circulated by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, who also exposed a recent case in Australia where two nurses were suspended for two years over antisemitic threats and remarks.
In a video shared on social media, Veifer denounced Dutch-Muslim nurse Batisma Chayat Sa’id’s remarks as a serious violation of medical ethics.
“Someone like that should be prosecuted and barred from treating patients. Imagine your grandparents being cared for by someone so hateful,” the Israeli influencer said.
Zorgwekkende dreiging op Instagram: Nederlandse verpleegkundige is bereid om “zionisten een extra spuitje te geven” en bereid “zionisten te laten sterven binnen de gezondheidszorg.” pic.twitter.com/xTnXNi1wH5
— CIDI
(@CIDI_nieuws) July 29, 2025
The incident was sparked when an Israeli-Dutch woman living in the Netherlands commented on a social media post by far-right politician Geert Wilders, who cautioned about what he called the country’s looming radical Islamization by 2050.
A social media account belonging to the Muslim nurse also commented on the post, claiming it would happen by 2027, to which the Israeli woman responded, “Your dream is our nightmare. But people wake up from nightmares. Our Netherlands, our Israel.”
“Nothing belongs to you! My grandparents built the Netherlands. I was born and raised here, and I will do everything in my power to help this country get rid of the Zionist cancer,” the nurse further replied.
“You know what I’m doing with Zionists — giving an extra injection as a nurse specialist. Letting them go to heaven!” Sa’id continued.
When the Israeli woman threatened to report her, Sa’id replied: “Haha, try your best! I don’t have a boss — I’m the boss! All Zionists can die, inside healthcare and beyond, and I’m happy to help with that!”
Shortly after her posts gained widespread attention, Sa’id deleted all her social media accounts, insisting that her identity had been stolen and that she was not responsible for such comments.
On Wednesday, local police detained Sa’id for questioning, but she denied the allegations, asserting that someone had impersonated her online.
“It seems someone is pretending to be me, posting false and defamatory statements,” the nurse said. “I want to make it clear — I hold no hatred toward Jews or any people, race, religion, or identity.”
Even after announcing plans to file an identity theft complaint, she faces skepticism from authorities, who have assigned a digital forensics expert to scrutinize her online accounts.
Last year, an account under her name also posted threatening messages aimed at Jewish people, including “Your time will come — don’t spare anyone,” and another in which she described the burial of Israelis in Gaza as “a dream come true.”
Earlier this year, two Australian nurses — Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh — gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night-shift conversation with Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities in Australia suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide.
They were also charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, they face up to 22 years in prison.
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French Authorities Halt Gaza Evacuations After Palestinian Student Expelled Over Viral Antisemitic Posts
Anti-Israel demonstration supporting the BDS movement, Paris France, June 8, 2024. Photo: Claire Serie / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
French authorities have halted evacuations from Gaza after a Palestinian student was expelled from the prestigious Sciences Po Lille and placed under investigation, following the viral circulation of hundreds of antisemitic posts praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and calling for the murder of Jews.
The incident drew widespread condemnation and public outrage, prompting French ministers to demand answers and call for an investigation into how the Gazan student was allowed into the country in the first place.
On Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that all further evacuations from Gaza would be suspended pending the completion of the investigation into the student’s background.
After receiving a scholarship, 25-year-old Nour Atalla, a Palestinian from Gaza, arrived in the country in early July to begin her master’s degree in law and communications this fall at the Institute of Political Science in Lille, northern France.
Barrot confirmed that discussions are ongoing about the student’s possible return to Gaza, making clear that she must leave the country pending the investigation’s outcome.
“She has no place at Sciences Po, nor in France,” the top French diplomat said.
On Thursday, local authorities reported that a criminal investigation is underway into Atalla, with the public prosecutor in Lille confirming the case was opened for “apology of terrorism, apology of crimes against humanity using an online public communication service.”
Barrot admitted lapses in the screening process that allowed her entry and has mandated a comprehensive review of everyone evacuated from Gaza to France.
“The security checks, carried out by the French services and Israeli authorities, did not detect the antisemitic content,” the French diplomat said.
Atalla is one of 292 Gazans admitted to the country following a court ruling that opened the door for Gazans to seek refugee status based on their nationality.
She was offered a place at Sciences Po Lille University based on “academic excellence” and following a recommendation by the French consulate in Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, the university announced it had revoked Atalla’s enrollment after hundreds of her past antisemitic and violent social media posts went viral, sparking widespread condemnation from political leaders and members of the local Jewish community.
In several of these posts, she glorified Hitler, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, called for the execution of Israeli hostages and the killing of Jews, and expressed support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
In one post, Atalla shared a video of Hitler giving a speech about Jews, writing, “Kill their young and their old. Show them no mercy … And kill them everywhere.”
In another post shared on Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, she wrote, “We must do everything we can to match the bloodshed — as much as possible.”