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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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‘Baby Killer’: Elite Virginia Private School Pays Over $100K to Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas agitators participate in anti-capitalist “Shut it down for Palestine!” protest in Vienna, Virginia, US, on Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
Nysmith School for the Gifted in Fairfax County, Virginia, agreed on Tuesday to pay $100,000, plus attorneys’ fees and other costs, to settle a lawsuit which alleged that it expelled three Jewish students for reporting antisemitism, avoiding a potentially lengthy trial.
The harrowing accusations rocked the private institution — which is superlatively acclaimed across the state and charges an annual tuition of more than $46,000 per year — calling into question its commitment to serving all students, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic origin.
One of the victims in the case, an 11-year-old Jane Doe, allegedly endured months of torment related to Israel’s war against Hamas and the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. According to the lawsuit, bullies called her a “baby killer,” proclaimed that Jews should be murdered for launching a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — which included sexually assaulting men and women and murdering the young and elderly — and openly professed that it was her Jewishness that had detonated their explosive, anti-Jewish rage.
Nymith’s headmaster, when briefed on the situation, told the young woman to “toughen up” and declined to discipline the offenders, the complaint said. At the same time, the school began to cancel Jewish history on campus, shutting down an annual week of Holocaust commemoration that would have featured a survivor of the Nazis’ genocide and discussions on antisemitism prevention. The school told the community that the war in Gaza forced its hand to be sensitive to global events, even amid incidents such as a student creating a portrait of Adolf Hitler.
In the end, Nysmith expelled Jane Doe, as well as her two siblings.
Now, in addition paying her family what amounts to nearly $150,000, the school says it will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by governments across the world, and submit to monitoring by a third-party watchdog for a minimum five-year period. That monitor will oversee the conclusion of Nysmith’s investigation of the bullying allegations and determine whether school officials did not intentionally violate the law.
“Justice has been served for our clients’ family, and the resulting actions underway at Nymith School will help prevent this kind of discrimination from happening to others. These steps are critical as antisemitism in K-12 education continues to rise,” Brandeis Center chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “Through this settlement, we send a clear message, one that demonstrates accountability and willingness to improve.”
He added, “It is our hope that other schools and universities around the country will follow suit. We thank [Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares] for the prompt and energetic work of his office throughout this process.”
Headmaster Ken Nysmith issued a public statement of contrition.
“I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge that there are things I could have done differently in this particular situation, and for that, I am truly sorry,” Nysmith wrote in a letter to parents. “For the 40 yeasts I have been at Nysmith, I have always tried to do my personal best, guided by our commitment to our students, families, and staff. In this instance, I will use this experience to reflect, to learn, and to continue improving as a leader.”
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington issued a comment on the resolution of the case as well.
“To call the facts of this case an outrage would be an understatement,” the organization said. “As antisemitism continues to surge in the United States, we must all do our part to fight back. Every school should offer an environment that is welcoming, inclusive, and free from hate. This agreement provides a roadmap toward the better future that Jewish families need more than ever, and that all of our children deserve.”
The Brandeis Center, one of America’s leading Jewish civil rights groups, notched another major court victory on Thursday which secured a six-figure settlement for a cohort of plaintiffs who alleged that their union fostered a hostile environment against Jewish and Zionist members during an outbreak of pro-Hamas sentiment set off by the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) allegedly became a “cornucopia of classic modern antisemitism” in late 2023. Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, it passed a virulently anti-Israel resolution which made only a passing reference to Hamas’s atrocities and launched a smear campaign against Jewish members who opposed it. Following that, the union facilitated the filing of disciplinary, “formal charges” against Jewish and Zionist members, attempting to expel them from its ranks.
Per the terms of the agreement, ALAA, the union for New York public defenders, will shell out $315,000 in damages while admitting culpability in the events which precipitated legal action. The ALAA also agreed to institute new training courses on the rights of union members and accept a neutral third party’s oversight of other organizational procedures.
“We are seeing an increasing trend in labor union antisemitism, much as we have seen a similar increase on college campuses. In both cases, there is bitter irony,” Marcus said in a statement. “Colleges are supposed to be islands of reason and tolerance. Labor unions are supposed to be advocates for social justice and workplace equality. To find the oldest hatred in such places is deeply antithetical to their mission.”
He added, “This settlement is a landmark in the fight against antisemitism in this sector. I am gratified by this outcome and resolved to support Jewish workers at any union around the country that is seeing this problem arise. Based on what we’re hearing around the country, there will be more of these cases coming.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Band Reacts to UK Music Hall Admitting ‘Mistake’ to Cancel Gig After Pressure From Anti-Israel Activists
Demonstrators hold Israeli and British flags outside the Law Courts, during a march against antisemitism, after an increase in the UK, during a temporary truce between the Palestinian Islamist terrorists Hamas and Israel, in London, Britain, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Susannah Ireland
The British band Oi Va Voi said on Wednesday it welcomed an apology from the music hall Strange Brew in the United Kingdom in which the venue admitted it “made a mistake” in canceling the band’s gig following pressure from activist groups.
The modern folk klezmer band from London, which is comprised of British Jews and non-Jews, said it also welcomed how the venue in Bristol “accepted that it treated Oi Va Voi differently due to our Jewish heritage” when it made the abrupt decision to cancel their show on May 21 with Israeli singer Zohara as a guest performer. Oi Va Voi added that it believes the “intimidation” by activist groups who pressured the venue to cancel the concert “would never be tolerated against any other minority, either in the music industry or elsewhere. Anti-Jewish racism is racism, and racism is injustice, wherever it comes from.”
Strange Brew explained this week that it made a “last-minute decision” to cancel the May 21 show due to “complaints” from activist groups, including criticism of the cover art on Zohara’s 2024 solo album “Welcoming The Golden Age.” The album cover features the Israeli musician naked and holding onto a wheelbarrow full of watermelons while standing in a field of watermelons. In May, Strange Brew said in the now-deleted Instagram post, cited by BristolLive, that activist groups claimed the artwork contained “politically loaded symbolism related to the people of Palestine.” The watermelon has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity and resistance since it shares the same colors as the Palestinian flag.
Now, months later, Strange Brew apologized for canceling the May 21 show and said it has “resolved the situation amicably” with Oi Va Voi.
“We recognize that Oi Va Voi was likely only subjected to this level of scrutiny, and Zohara’s album artwork interpreted negatively, because they are a Jewish band performing with an Israeli singer,” the venue said in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “Oi Va Voi are musicians, not activists. They have no political affiliations and, as far as we are aware, have never made any political statements, be it in their music or otherwise. We are an inclusive venue, and it was not in line with our values to exclude Oi Va Voi and Zohara from performing on the basis of conjecture by another group about their views.”
The venue added that in light of the incident, it has enforced “compulsory antisemitism training for all our senior management” and made a donation to the Community Security Trust (CST), a British charity that aims to protect British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism. Strange Brew also urged other music venues to “not hold Jewish artists, wherever they may be from, to a higher standard by demanding they account for the actions of others or let the current conflict [in the Middle East] effectively exclude Jewish acts from our venues.”
“Jewish people have greatly enriched the UK’s music and arts scenes, helping shape its sounds and stories,” the venue said. “Losing this vital source of creativity would be a real loss for the country.”
Oi Va Voi acknowledged Strange Brew’s donation to the CST and commitment to enforce antisemitism training in the band’s statement on Wednesday. It called complaints from activist groups about the band, its music, and Zohara’s album artwork “untrue and misguided claims.”
“The only reason we received a level of scrutiny that would lead to such false accusations is because of our heritage and the nationality of one of our performers,” the group stated. The band then expressed disappointment in “the lack of solidarity” from fellow musicians and the “deafening” silence from the “wider music industry” after their gig was canceled
“The readiness of venues, promoters, and festivals to cave in to demands that exclude Jewish artists, and the lack of attention from the music press when this does happen, has contributed to an environment which has allowed anti-Jewish racism in Britain to persist largely unchallenged,” Oi Va Voi wrote. “This episode has had an immense personal and emotional impact on us. It has also led to financial loss, reputational damage and a barrage of hate, the like of which we had never experienced before.”
Immediately after the May 21 concert was abruptly canceled, Oi Va Voi responded to the move by saying that criticism about the band from activists and claims about the political intentions of Zohara’s album artwork are both “untrue” and “misguided.”
“Anyone who knows Oi Va Voi knows that we sing songs which are socially conscious, humanitarian, and speak to audiences across divides,” the band said at the time. “We are a non-political band who plays to bring people together, not to polarize them. And we are proud of it.”
In her own statement released in May, Zohara defended her album cover and said, “This discussion is secondary to the only thing that truly matters: ending the starvation in Gaza, bringing all the hostages home, stopping Israel’s bombardments.”
She explained that the image of her “gathering fruit in a field” was not meant to have any political implications, and in fact, she “didn’t know” originally that watermelons were a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. She added that after learning about the connection, her artwork feels more “meaningful” to her because of her own Moroccan heritage and how “for many years,” the Moroccan culture “was silenced where I grew up.”
“Boycotting artists over imagined narratives doesn’t serve justice,” she said in conclusion. “It silences the very people working to create better futures.”
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Klimt Portrait That Helped Save Jewish Subject From Nazi Persecution Sells for Record $236 Million at Auction
Painting by Gustav Klimt ‘Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer’ (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) on display at Sotheby’s auction house new global headquarters on Madison Avenue in the Marcel Breuer building in New York, NY on Nov. 12, 2025. Photo: Lev Radin/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A Gustav Klimt portrait that helped safe its Jewish subject from Nazi persecution during the Holocaust sold on Tuesday for a record-breaking $236.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” is a 6-foot-tall painting that the artist worked on for two years between 1914 and 1916. It depicts the 2o-year-old only daughter of August and Szerena Lederer, wrapped in an East Asian emperor’s cloak adorned with dragons. The Lederers, who were Jewish, were Klimt’s greatest patrons and also the second wealthiest family in Vienna, Austria, only behind the Rothschilds. Klimt painted portraits of other Lederer family members as well and their art collection included many Klimt paintings.
The painting is one of only two full-length Klimt portraits that remain privately owned, while the majority of the rest are in museums. The portrait sold for $205 million plus premium to a buyer over the phone. It marks a record for a piece of modern art and doubled the previous record for a Klimt painting, according to Reuters. Sotheby’s declined to share the identity of the portrait’s buyer.
Following Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, which took place two years after August Lederer died, Nazis looted the Lederer art collection but left behind the family portraits because they were considered “too Jewish” to be worth stealing, according to the National Gallery of Canada, where “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” was on loan for three years.
In an attempt to save herself from Nazi persecution, Elisabeth fabricated a story that Klimt, who was not Jewish and died in 1918, was her real father. The fact that Klimt had a reputation as a philanderer and spend years obsessing over Elisabeth’s portrait helped support her story. Szerena even signed an affidavit supporting the false claim about Klimt’s paternity in an effort to save her daughter, according to the National Gallery of Canada. The Nazi regime ultimately gave Elisabeth a document stating that she was descended from Klimt and along with help from a former brother-in-law, who was a high-ranking Nazi official, she lived safely in Vienna until she died of an illness in 1944.
The painting was then looted by the Nazis and nearly destroyed in a fire during World War II, but miraculously survived. It was returned to a Lederer family member in 1948, who kept the piece until selling it in 1983. “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” joined the art collection of Estée Lauder heir and Jewish billionaire Leonard Lauder in 1985. He died in June at 92 and five Klimt pieces from his collection have sold at Sotheby’s for a total of $392 million.