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Why are there so many Jewish sports halls of fame?
(JTA) — On one wall of the dining hall at the Indiana University Hillel sit 36 framed photographs of Jewish alumni who have made an impact in the sports industry, from athletes to executives. It’s the IU Jewish Sports Wall of Fame.
One of those pictures is of Josh Rawitch, who has had a long career as an executive in baseball. At first, Rawitch told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he questioned whether he was truly worthy of being honored alongside fellow Hoosiers like Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, and Ted Kluszewski, a four-time All-Star with the MLB’s Cincinnati Reds in the 1950s.
But then Rawitch thought about the location of the wall, and who it might impact.
“You’re going to have young people, 18, 19 years old, walking in there looking at the wall, seeing all these people who are up there who have gone on to do significant things in the industry,” Rawitch said. “That’s actually pretty cool. That actually inspires them. If I was 18 and I’d have walked in and that wall had been there when I was a freshman, I would have thought, ‘that’s really cool.’ I would love to be like one of those people someday.”
Rawitch knows a thing or two about halls of fame: He’s the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. He said institutions like the one he leads are important “repositories for history.”
“I think having a hall of fame of any kind in any city essentially does two things — it honors people who are really good at what they do, and it documents the history of what’s gone on in that industry,” he said.
The Indiana University Jewish Sports Wall of Fame, located in the dining hall at Indiana University Hillel. (Courtesy)
The display that honors Rawitch in Bloomington is just one of many halls, walls and exhibits across the United States and the world — many of them small — that honor Jewish greatness in sports. From Southern California to Philadelphia, St. Louis to Washington, D.C., similar organizations and institutions recognize Jewish athletes, coaches, executives, media members and beyond.
Why so many?
“We want to call attention to that because of the antisemitic trope that Jews are not good soldiers, farmers or athletes. We need to overcome that,” said Jed Margolis, who runs the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Israel, which has honored over 400 athletes since 1981 and is housed in Netanya after being founded in the United States. “It’s simply not true. And telling the stories out there will help inspire people and lay to rest some of those falsehoods which I think are important to overcome.”
In the fight against antisemitism, Steve Rosenberg, who chairs the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, said “the best defense is a good offense.” The Philadelphia hall, which inducted its first class in 1997 and has moved locations multiple times, has 183 total inductees, including former NFL tight end Brent Novoselsky and longtime 76ers broadcaster Marc Zumoff.
“We shine the light on the great accomplishments of Jews in sports. And we need to do more of that in the world,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg added that he thinks there should be even more halls of fame, for Jewish actors, architects, poets and so on, “so that we can celebrate our accomplishments, not in the way that we pat ourselves on the back, but that we can talk about all the great things that we do as a people.”
For Craig Neuman, the chief programming officer at the St. Louis Jewish Community Center, a key feature of Jewish culture is the sense of connection Jews feel when they discover that a celebrity is Jewish. That sense of pride is clear in the work Neuman does with the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, which has its own hallway at the JCC.
“I can’t imagine any other place in the world where you would say, ‘I feel connected to this other country, or these other people, by sheer virtue of our religion,’” Neuman said. “There’s some pride that’s involved with that.”
Like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame seeks to recognize the most elite athletes — Jewish world record holders, Olympians and the like. Or, as Margolis put it: “We’re looking for the best of the best: the Hank Greenbergs, the Mark Spitzes, people like that.”
Jed Margolis, left, with former Israeli basketball star Mickey Berkowitz, back center, and his family, at the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Netanya, Israel. (Courtesy of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame)
At the local halls of fame, the criteria are different. Rawitch likened it to the dynamic between national versus state and local politics.
“As the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I think it’s pretty clear that we are honoring the absolute greatest who ever played or worked within the game of baseball nationally,” Rawitch said. “Clearly, that should be harder to get into than, say, the California Baseball Hall of Fame or the New York Baseball Hall of Fame. But I don’t think it should diminish if you’re a recipient of that. It should be an honor for anybody who’s named to any sort of hall or wall of fame.”
Inclusivity is central to the local halls of fame.
“I think we want to, on some level, send a message that says, ‘hey, just because you’re not in Cooperstown doesn’t mean that you didn’t have an impact in the world, on your sport, in your community,’” said Neuman.
But that doesn’t mean the standards for entry aren’t high. In fact, in St. Louis, candidates for induction must possess more than just athletic accomplishments — there’s also the “mensch factor.”
“When you are in a position where people might look up to you because of some accomplishments, and whether it’s because you’re an athlete, or you’re a politician, or a lawyer or whatever the profession that puts you in the public’s eye, there’s a certain responsibility that comes along with that,” said Neuman. “It’s a great example to set that, yeah, this guy was a great baseball player, but he was also a great human being as well.”
The St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame has 84 members inducted across eight classes dating back to 1992 — including Chicago Cubs ace Ken Holtzman and basketball legend Nancy Lieberman. The last group was enshrined in 2018.
Many of those inductees represent more than the typical professional sports — baseball, basketball, football, soccer and hockey. There are racquetball and handball players, even a hot air balloonist. (Whether that counted as a sport was a topic of debate for the selection committee.)
In Philadelphia, a similar conversation was held around whether poker should qualify — in that case, poker was allowed, but it turned out the candidate in question wasn’t actually Jewish.
For Rosenberg, recognizing people from a diverse range of sports is an important part of the work, especially as he works to engage younger members of the community.
“I want the young people, particularly the young Jews, to know that there’s a place for you, no matter if you’re a golfer, a swimmer, a gymnast, a baseball player, whatever you want to do, that you can go on to achieve greatness and that greatness will be recognized,” Rosenberg said.
He added that very few people stop by the hall of fame.
“The reality is, if I stood at the hall of fame on any given day, people that are coming in just to see the hall of fame, we couldn’t get a minyan,” Rosenberg said, referencing Judaism’s 10-person prayer quorum. “Maybe over the course of a year. But we do get the sort of incidental traffic, people that are going to the JCC for other activities.”
The Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. (Courtesy)
The Philadelphia hall’s journey to the JCC was not a simple one. The collection used to have a permanent space at a local YMHA, featuring typical sports artifacts like bats and jerseys. Then it moved into the Jewish federation building — until September 2021, when Hurricane Ida caused severe flooding that destroyed much of the hall of fame’s memorabilia. The current exhibit at the JCC is more two-dimensional, Rosenberg said.
One of the Philadelphia inductees is Arn Tellem, the vice chairman of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and a longtime agent who represented A-list athletes like Kobe Bryant. Throughout the 2000s, Tellem was regularly ranked among the top agents in all of sports, and he is a member of the Southern California, Michigan and Philadelphia Jewish Sports Halls of Fame.
By the time Tellem got the call from the Philadelphia hall in 2015, he had received his fair share of recognition. But that didn’t make this honor count any less for the Philadelphia native. Rosenberg said Tellem “couldn’t wait to come” to the ceremony, bringing three tables worth of supporters with him.
“Arn Tellem isn’t doing this for recognition, or for money, or for fame,” Rosenberg said. “He has that. It means something to him.”
That sentiment seems to be shared by honorees from across the halls. Rosenberg added that he has seen some inductees moved to tears by the news. When Chris Berman, the ESPN broadcaster who has anchored the network’s flagship program “SportsCenter” since a month after it launched in 1979, was honored by the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, he was “very touched,” said Margolis.
Lauren Becker Rubin, a former star lacrosse and field hockey player at Brown University, was inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
“It was a big honor for both me and my family,” Becker Rubin told JTA. “I think the connection of celebrating both the athletic achievement and the community makes it meaningful on another level.”
Becker Rubin, who is now a mental performance coach, is also a member of Brown’s athletic Hall of Fame for setting numerous school records in both sports during her college career. But being recognized by her local Jewish community was a particularly special honor, she said.
After her induction, Becker Rubin joined the hall’s board. “Celebrating positive achievements and putting out positive messages about Jewish athletes is a good counter to the negative rhetoric that is out there,” she said.
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The post Why are there so many Jewish sports halls of fame? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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British Jewish groups call for resignation of police chief who banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from soccer match
(JTA) — Two British Jewish groups are calling for the ouster of a local police chief over claims that the force allegedly mishandled the banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a soccer game in November.
The decision to ban the fans from a match against Aston Villa Football Club on Nov. 6 was initially made after the West Midlands Police advised the group responsible for issuing safety certificates for the fame to ban the fans over “public safety concerns.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and a host of Jewish groups decried the decision at the time. Now, a parliamentary tribunal has increased scrutiny on the police department’s decision making.
While the police have claimed that hundreds of Maccabi fans had targeted Muslim communities the night before a 2024 game in Amsterdam, Amsterdam police have since disputed their characterization of the confrontation. The violence there was driven by people targeting the Maccabi fans, Amsterdam police have said.
At the tribunal on Tuesday, Chair Dame Karen Bradley accused the local police force of “scraping” to find a reason to justify the ban.
West Midlands Police’s chief constable, Craig Guildford, defended the decision, replying, “I’m really sorry if it comes across in that way. That was absolutely not the case.”
Mike O’Hara, the assistant chief constable, told the committee that “there was a lot of intelligence that people would actively seek out Maccabi fans and seek violence towards them,” according to The Times.
Kemi Badenoch, the British Conservative party leader, said on Tuesday that West Midlands police “knew extremists were planning to attack Jews for going to a football match” but their response was to “blame and remove Jewish people instead,” according to The Times.
“It seems that the police reached a decision first, and then searched for evidence to justify it, apparently influenced by the threat posed by local extremists,” said the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Jewish Leadership Council in a joint statement. “It is also apparent that claims about the previous behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were unsubstantiated or erroneous.”
The Jewish groups wrote that “significant harm has been done to the confidence of the Jewish community in the Police,” adding that if Guildford does not resign, “responsibility lies with central government to intervene.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry also wrote that the conduct of the West Midlands Police towards the Maccabi fans was “utterly disgraceful” in a post on X.
“There is a specific term for the phenomenon of scapegoating Israelis and Jews while exonerating the true perpetrators – jihadists seeking to harm Jews. it is called antisemitism,” the post read. “Regrettably, this is the reality of Britain today. There must be action and accountability for such actions.”
The calls for Guildford’s resignation come as Maccabi Tel Aviv is playing in Spain — again behind closed doors as well over security concerns.
On Tuesday, Maccabi Tel Aviv played against FC Barcelona without fans after the team announced the game had been designated as a “high risk.”
And about a game planned for Thursday, Real Madrid said in a statement, “Following a meeting of the State Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance in Sport, which declared the game high-risk, Real Madrid is complying with the recommendation made by the National Police.”
The post British Jewish groups call for resignation of police chief who banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from soccer match appeared first on The Forward.
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Venezuelan Jewish Leader Expresses Hope for Democratic Future After US Captures Maduro
A person holds up an image depicting Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, as people celebrate after the US struck Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, in Santiago, Chile. Jan. 3, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
A Venezuelan Jewish leader expressed renewed hope for a return to democracy after President Nicolás Maduro’s capture in a US operation, seeing it as a potential turning point following years of authoritarian rule and economic turmoil.
Miguel Truzman, president of the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela — the umbrella organization for Venezuelan Jews — described the moment as being met with “faith, hope, and optimism” for Venezuelan families and the nation’s future.
“The American military’s operations across different parts of the country caught us by surprise. It’s truly an extraordinary moment,” Truzman told Spain-based Radio Sefarad in an interview earlier this week.
“Thanks to the careful execution of the operation, the physical safety of most Venezuelans was not at risk,” he said.
“We are now closely following these remarkable events in Venezuela and hope for stability as the country enters a new year shaped by these changes. We face the future with faith, hope, and optimism — for both families and the nation,” Truzman continued.
On Saturday night, the US launched a major military operation in Venezuela that struck state infrastructure and captured long-serving President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores — in Washington’s most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Shortly afterward, Vice President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodríguez, 56, was formally sworn in as the country’s interim president. She demanded the “immediate release” of Maduro and his wife, arguing that the arrests were made under false pretenses as part of a broader effort to impose regime change and seize the country’s natural resources
“The country is gradually returning to normal — synagogues, for example, have reopened their doors for daily services,” Truzman said during his interview.
“Venezuela is entering a new chapter of governance. For our community, the most important focus is preserving our daily Jewish life, fostering connections with other religious communities, and safeguarding the well-being of our members,” he continued.
“The Jewish community of Venezuela is a Zionist community that strongly supports the State of Israel as a sovereign nation, with a legitimate right to exist, defend itself, and maintain its territorial integrity,” Truzman said.
On Monday, Maduro and his wife appeared in US federal court in New York City, pleaded not guilty to drug‑trafficking and other criminal charges, and were scheduled to return for their next hearing on March 17.
Accused of overseeing a cocaine‑trafficking network that worked with several violent groups across Latin America, Maduro faces criminal charges including narco‑terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
Simy Blomer Benchimol, a Venezuelan living in Spain, also expressed hope that the US intervention could open the door to democracy after years of authoritarian rule.
“I believe it’s a price worth paying if it means we can live in peace,” Benchimol told Radio Sefarad in an interview earlier this week.
“No one is scared — in fact, people are feeling hopeful,” she said. “After 26 years, even if progress is slow, I’m happy to see change beginning. No one went out to defend the regime.”
“This had to be done. We’ve fought for years in every possible way — even holding completely fair elections — and they stole everything from us,” Benchimol continued. “There was no other way to remove this government — this isn’t a kidnapping, but the arrest of someone who has caused immense harm to the country and the world.”
Many international observers and US allies have maintained that the Venezuelan opposition movement was cheated of victory in the 2024 election.
Venezuela’s Jewish community, once one of Latin America’s largest, has declined to roughly 3,000 – 5,000 people today, mostly in Caracas.
Maduro has a long history of antisemitic rhetoric, falsely claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t an “authentic Jew,” accusing Israel of seeking to dominate Central Asia and the Middle East and to control the US, and repeatedly praising Hamas and other terrorist groups as “freedom fighters.”
The Venezuelan leader has also previously claimed that “Zionists” were facilitating Venezuela’s takeover as the United States intensified its recent military campaign targeting drug trafficking and “narco-terrorist” networks near the country.
“There are those who want to hand this country over to the devils — you know who, right? The far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils,” Maduro said during a televised speech in November.
In 2024, Maduro also blamed “international Zionism” for the large-scale anti-government protests that erupted across the country following the presidential elections, in which he claimed victory amid widespread claims of fraud.
Venezuela cut diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 under then-President Hugo Chávez, and the two countries have had no formal relations since then.
Meanwhile, under Maduro, Venezuela has strengthened its ties with Iran, becoming an increasingly important financial and operational base for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, the Iranian regime’s chief proxy force in the Middle East.
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MPs Say Police Chief in UK Should Be Fired After Accused of ‘Covering Up’ Threat to Maccabi Tel Aviv Fans
WMP Chief Constable Craig Guildford speaking before the Home Affairs Committee on Jan. 6, 2026. Photo: Screenshot
Jewish groups and several members of Parliament in the United Kingdom are calling for the chief constable of the West Midlands Police (WMP) to lose his job after the police force was accused on Tuesday of hiding evidence about anti-Israel locals who were threatening violence against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv.
WMP Chief Constable Craig Guildford appeared before the Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday for a second round of questioning regarding the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, whom police claimed were “uniquely violent,” from attending a Europa League soccer match against Aston Villa in Birmingham on Nov. 6 last year.
Documents revealed on Tuesday showed that the police’s initial public safety concerns surrounding the soccer match were not because of behavior displayed by Maccabi fans, but due to “high confidence intelligence” that police received on Sept. 5 about locals in the predominantly Muslim area of West Midlands who wanted to “arm” themselves” against Maccabi fans because they are from Israel. Birmingham City Council Leader John Cotton told the committee on Tuesday that police did not share with him the intelligence they received and their honest reasoning for banning Israeli fans.
Conservative MP Karen Bradley, who chaired the committee, accused the police force of “scraping” to justify their ban against Israeli soccer fans from attending the game on Nov. 6. She told WMP officials on Tuesday: “It feels to us like you felt you needed to justify banning these fans and that scraping was done to find a reason.”
In a post on X, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Guildford’s position was now “untenable.”
“West Midlands police capitulated to Islamists and then collaborated with them to cover it up,” she said. “They knew extremists were planning to attack Jews for going to a football match, and their response was to blame and remove Jewish people instead. They presented an inversion of reality and misled a parliamentary committee. We have had enough of this in Britain. The British police serve the British public, not local sectarian interests.”
Tory MP Nick Timothy, who is an Aston Villa fan and former Home Office special adviser, also called for Guildford to be fired on Tuesday. “What was left of the credibility of West Midlands police has been destroyed” following the evidence presented to the committee, he wrote on X.
“We learned earlier that their initial reason for banning Israelis from Villa Park was the danger *to* away fans *from* ‘armed’ locals. But to justify the ban they portrayed the Israelis as ‘uniquely violent’ and military-trained,” he explained. “And when the Home Affairs Select Committee asked why the vital information about the danger *to* Israelis was kept secret, the chief constable ludicrously said it was because he had not been asked for it. “
“He is too arrogant to resign,” the MP added about Guilford. “The home secretary has the power to remove him under Section 40 of the Police Act 1996. She should use it.”
Timothy further criticized the police force, saying, “We basically had the mob saying we’re not prepared to have Israelis come to the city we live in and the police decided to appease the mob — and we all know where appeasement ends.” He also accused WMP of “lying” repeatedly in an effort to explain their ban against Maccabi fans and failing to take on “extreme elements in the communities they are supposed to police.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Tuesday’s committee hearing was “yet another disgraceful performance from West Midlands police.” He added that the meeting clearly showed “the threat of armed Islamist thugs was a key consideration in the force’s decision to ban Israeli fans from attending the match, but this crucial detail was held back.”
“The chief constable’s pathetic excuse that he wasn’t asked is just the latest attempt to cover up a farce of his own making,” the MP added. “His position is untenable. If he doesn’t resign, then the home secretary must use her powers to sack him, and even more importantly explain exactly what she knew and when.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage told reporters that Guildford “needs to go today” during a press conference on Wednesday to announce the party’s 2028 mayoral candidate for London.
“It was monstrous that the impression was given that the Jewish-Israeli fans would be violent, when the truth is there were serious threats of violence against them, and huge degrees of misinformation, fed in by local elected politicians in the West Midlands with the assistance of one or two mosques, who do not have good reputations,” Farage said. “I thought the performance yesterday in front of the Commons committee was absolutely abject, so he needs to go first.”
The Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews also called for Guildford to lose his job in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.
“It seems that the police reached a decision first, and then searched for evidence to justify it, apparently influenced by the threat posed by local extremists,” they said. “The police excluded (having initially included) any assessment of the significant risk to the Jewish community, and claimed to have consulted the local community in advance of the decision, which they had not.”
“In light of these events,” the Jewish groups continued, “significant harm has been done to the confidence of the Jewish community in the police. Action must be taken to ensure that these failures do not recur and to restore trust. Accountability matters. Considering the chief constable’s role in these events, a change of leadership is essential. If the chief constable does not step aside, responsibility lies with central government to intervene.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) also called on Guildford to step down.
“We believe Chief Constable Craig Guildford has failed to uphold the standards of neutrality and responsibility required of his office,” CAM Director of European Affairs Shannon Seban wrote in a letter to UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. “We therefore respectfully call for his resignation. Should he refuse, decisive action by the home secretary is warranted.”
Guildford insisted there “wasn’t any political interference” in the decision to ban Maccabi fans from the soccer match in November. He said he was “very much sorry,” adding, “I do regret the focus that this has placed on our local Jewish community.”
Mike O’Hara, assistant chief constable of West Midlands police, also insisted there was “no conspiracy” behind the ban when speaking to the parliamentary committee on Tuesday. “There was a lot of intelligence that people would actively seek out Maccabi fans and seek violence towards them. There was a bubbling situation locally,” he said.
The police told the committee they were informed by senior Dutch officers that Maccabi fans were responsible for violence during a match against Ajax in Amsterdam in November 2024, but Dutch authorities have denied those claims.
The Embassy of Israel in the United Kingdom said on Wednesday that the police force’s initial portrayal of Israeli soccer fans as violent “was a gross mischaracterization that served the needs of those actively inciting against an Israeli team.”
“This framing diverted attention away from credible intelligence warnings regarding extremist elements preparing to target Israeli and Jewish Maccabi supporters, and instead placed blame on the very community that was facing the threat,” the embassy added in a statement shared on X. “The decision to obscure these assessments, and to allow a misleading narrative to take hold, raises serious questions. These acts by law enforcement institutions undermine real security risks, and even encourages a climate in which hostility towards Israeli and Jewish communities can be normalized under the rule of law. These matters require full accountability.”