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Why your synagogue, and mine, needs a pickleball court
(JTA) — The weekday minyan at my synagogue has been moved from the sanctuary to its airy social hall. And whenever I attend I have the same lofty thought: This would make a great pickleball court.
Pickleball, the subject of countless breathless articles calling it the fastest growing sport in America, is essentially tennis for people with terrible knees. Players use hard paddles to knock a wiffle ball across a net, on a court about a third as big as a tennis court. It’s weirdly addictive, and because the usual game is doubles and the court is so small, it’s pleasantly social. I play on a local court (I won’t say where, because it’s hard enough to get playing time), where a nice little society has formed among the regulars.
“A nice little society among the regulars” is also how I might describe a synagogue. Or at least that’s the argument I fantasize making before my synagogue board, in a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”-style speech that will convince them to let me set up a net in the social hall so I can play in the dead of winter. I dream of doing for synagogues and pickleball what Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, did for shuls and pools: He popularized the notion of “synagogue-centers” that would include prayer services as well as adult ed, Hebrew schools, theater, athletics and, yes, swimming pools.
I might even quote David Kaufman, who wrote a history of the synagogue-center movement called “Shul With a Pool”: “Kaplan was the first to insist that the synagogue remain the hub from which other communal functions derive. Only then might the synagogue fulfill its true purpose: the fostering of Jewish community.”
Alas, the title “Mordecai Kaplan of Pickleball” may have to go to Rabbi Alex Lazarus-Klein of Congregation Shir Shalom, a combined Reform and Reconstructionist synagogue near Buffalo, New York — which knows from winter. Last week he sent me a charming essay saying that his synagogue has begun twice-weekly pickleball nights in its social hall. About 40 members showed up on its first night in November, and it’s been steady ever since.
“When my synagogue president presented the idea during High Holy Day services, many of our members rolled their eyes,” Lazarus-Klein, 49, wrote. But the rabbi counters by citing Kaplan and paraphrasing one of his forebears, Rabbi Henry Berkowitz, a 19th-century Reform rabbi who encouraged synagogues in the 1880s “to create programming related to physical training, education, culture, and entertainment to help better compete with social clubs. Over the years, synagogues have experimented with all types of sports activities including bowling, basketball, and, more recently, Gaga. Why not pickleball as well?”
Lazarus-Klein also told me in an interview that his synagogue doesn’t do catering, so the “social hall just sits empty except for High Holidays or bigger events.”
“Our buildings were built for just a few times a year. It’s a shame,” he said. “We have tried as a congregation to get our building more use. We rent to a preschool, we have canasta groups, we have adult education. But for large swaths [of time], especially the social hall is just completely empty.”
Lazarus-Klein wrote that the pickleball sessions have attracted regular synagogue-goers, as well as “many others who had never been to any other synagogue event outside of High Holy Days.”
The players also cross generations, including the rabbi’s 9- and 12-year- old sons and congregants as old as 70. “With a little ingenuity and a few hundred dollars, our empty social hall is suddenly filled several nights a week.”
I offered the rabbi two other arguments for in-shul pickling. First, hosting pickleball honors the spirit of any synagogue that has “Shalom” in its name: By bringing the court under its roof, the synagogue avoids the turf battles between tennis players and picklers that are playing out, sometimes violently, in places across the country.
And I shared with Lazarus-Klein my obsession with the synagogue as a “third place” — sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s idea of public places “that host the regular, voluntary, informal and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.”
“That’s a great way of thinking of it,” said Lazarus-Klein. “I think our membership does kind of use it that way. It’s another base, not where they’re working and not where their home is, where they can feel at home.”
The “shul with a pool” has long been derided by traditionalists who say the extracurriculars detract from the religious function of synagogues. Kaufman quotes Israel Goldstein, the rabbi of B’nai Jeshurun in New York, who in 1928 complained that “whereas the hope of the Synagogue Center was to Synagogize the tone of the secular activities of the family, the effect has been the secularization of the place of the Synagogue…. [I]t has been at the expense of the sacred.”
Lazarus-Klein, who was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. argues that there is sacred in the secular, and vice versa.
“I think a synagogue is a community,” he told me. “A community is a place that supports each other and it’s certainly not just about Jewish ritual, right? It’s about being together in all different ways. And the pickleball just really expands what we’re able to offer and who we’re able to reach.”
Kaplan, I think, deserves the last word: The synagogue, he wrote in 1915, “should become a social centre where the Jews of the neighborhood may find every possible opportunity to give expression to their social and play instincts. It must become the Jew’s second home. It must become [their] club, [their] theatre and [their] forum.”
It must become, I know he would agree, a place for pickleball.
—
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Romanians Stabbed Journalist in London at Behest of Iran, UK Court Told
People walk past a mural depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A team of Romanian men, acting as proxies for the Iranian government, carried out a knife attack on a journalist working for a Persian-language media organization in London, prosecutors told a British court on Monday.
Pouria Zaratifoukolaei, known as Pouria Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin who works for Iran International, was stabbed in the leg three times as he was attacked near his home in Wimbledon, southwest London, in March 2024.
At the start of the trial of two of the three men accused of carrying out the stabbing, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said they had targeted Zeraati, whose Saudi-funded TV employer is critical of Iran‘s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by Tehran.
‘DELIBERATE, PLANNED VIOLENCE’
“This was no robbery, no fight that got out of control, it was deliberate, planned violence to achieve what it did, that is serious injury to its target,” Atkinson told London‘s Woolwich Crown Court.
They had “committed a planned attack preceded by reconnaissance, and which was ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state,” the prosecutor said.
Iran has denied any involvement in the incident.
Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, both deny charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding. The third man accused of involvement, David Andrei, was arrested in Romania but is not involved in the trial.
Atkinson said Zeraati was an “obvious and readily identifiable target for violence to be inflicted by proxies” acting for Iran. He said posters had been put up in Tehran in November 2022 featuring pictures of journalists including Zeraati, under the heading “Wanted: dead or alive.”
“In recent years, since 2005, the Islamic Republic has turned less to its own operatives and increasingly to use proxies such as criminal gangs to meet their threatened violence on their behalf,” Atkinson said.
“That has included attacks on persons in this country who have become targets of Iranian intimidation and, effectively, terror.”
Atkinson said Zeraati had been subject to “extensive reconnaissance,” and a year before Stana had been arrested in the garden of his apartment with another man, in possession of latex gloves, scissors, and a mask.
On the day of the attack, Badea and Andrei confronted Zeraati as he crossed the street from his home to his car, the prosecutor said. Andrei held him, while Badea stabbed him at the top of his thigh before they fled to a getaway car driven by Stana, the prosecutor added.
The men, who were motivated by money, dumped the car and some clothing, and then took a taxi to Heathrow Airport from where they flew to Geneva, Atkinson said.
The trial, which is expected to last more than two weeks, continues.
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‘Beyond Ironic’: Mamdani’s ‘Nakba’ Video Features Non-Arab Woman Critics Say Has European Roots
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) speaking with the press in the Bronx, New York City, May 18, 2026. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked the Palestinian “Nakba” with an official City Hall video featuring a woman presented as a survivor of Israel’s founding war, but critics quickly identified her family as “European settlers” from Bosnia who left Arab-controlled territory.
The backlash came as leaders of mainstream Jewish groups said they would reject invitations to Mamdani’s “Jewish Heritage” celebration at Gracie Mansion on Monday evening.
The video, posted on Friday, features New York resident Inea Bushnaq, identified as a “Nakba survivor,” recounting her family’s departure from their home because, as she termed it, “the Zionists were coming into Jerusalem.”
Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe,” a term Palestinians use for Israel’s founding and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for the refugees’ millions of descendants is viewed by many Israelis and Jews as a call that would end Israel’s existence by demographic means. Critics said the video’s assertion that the Nakba “continues to this day” echoed that position.
Text in the video says the Nakba refers to the “expulsion and displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel” and says Israel’s pre-state militaries, “the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi militias, among others, destroyed more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities, killing thousands of Palestinians and carrying out dozens of massacres.”
“May 15 is the annual commemoration of the Nakba. For Palestinians, their displacement and the Nakba continue to this day,” the video text reads.
The video makes no mention of Arab attacks on Jews before and during the 1948 war, the invasion by Arab armies after Israel’s declaration of independence meant to eradicate the nascent state, the rejection of the UN partition plan that would have created a Jewish and an Arab state, or the expulsion of Jews from parts of Jerusalem that came under Jordanian control.
Speaking in a British accent in the video, Bushnaq, who is described as Palestinian-American, explains how keys have become a Palestinian symbol of the right to return. “You have the key but not the house,” she says.
Tom Gross, a Middle East expert, noted that the video omitted the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries while relying on what he called a flawed account of Palestinian history.
“Not only does Mamdani’s video fail to mention the numerically greater 850,000 Jews driven out of their homes in the Arab world; he can’t even get his narrative right regarding the so-called Palestinian Nakba,” he told The Algemeiner.
In a post shared widely on social media, Gross cited research by the historian and influencer who posts as J0sh_a to challenge Bushnaq’s portrayal as a Palestinian refugee.
“It turns out that the ‘Nakba Survivor’ who stars in Mayor Mamdani’s official NY City Hall Palestinian propaganda video yesterday, is literally a ‘European settler,’” the post said.
Bushnaq’s grandparents were Muslim Bosnians who left Bosnia for Ottoman Syria in the late 19th century after Austria-Hungary took control of Bosnia. The family later moved to Tulkarem, which came under Jordanian control after 1948, not Israeli control. Bushnaq was born in Jerusalem because of the city’s medical facilities, but her family remained based in Tulkarem, the post said.
Bushnaq’s father worked in England in the 1930s, returned to what was then known as Mandatory Palestine under British administration, and then in 1948 the family chose to go back to England.
“They were not expelled, and no one forced them to move to England. In any case, Tulkarem, and the old city of Jerusalem remained under Jordanian Arab control. No Arabs were forced to leave from Tulkarem in 1948,” Gross wrote.
“So, in summary, this is a European with no strong roots in the land of Israel, whose family made the decision to immigrate back to the continent of their grandparents instead of remaining under Arab control in what was part of Jordan after 1948.”
Critics also pointed to a poster seen on Bushnaq’s wall in the video. The “Visit Palestine” image was not Palestinian nationalist artwork, they said, but a Zionist-era tourism poster designed by Jewish artist Franz Kraus to encourage travel to the Holy Land.
“It is beyond ironic that the only person featured to represent Palestinian Arabs in his video appears to be someone from a recently arrived European settler family – from Bosnia – and not Arab at all,” he told The Algemeiner.
Gross also argued that Bushnaq’s family story pointed to a wider part of the history often left out of Palestinian nationalist accounts, saying many Arab families in the land in 1948 had arrived within a generation or two, drawn by British rule or by economic opportunities created by Jewish development. He cited surnames such as Al-Masri and Masarwa, both linked to Egypt, Fayumi, from Fayum in Egypt, Ismaili, from Ismailia, Al-Horani, from Hauran in Syria, Sidawi, from Sidon in Lebanon, and Al-Hijazi, from the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia.
Jewish groups, leaders and members of Congress slammed the post.
The UJA-Federation of New York accused Mamdani of leaving out critical context, writing on X that “the refugees you post about exist because 22 Arab states launched a war to destroy Israel,” after rejecting the UN plan that also called for a Palestinian state.
Mayor Mamdani: the refugees you post about exist because 22 Arab states launched a war to destroy Israel on May 15, 1948—rejecting the UN plan that also called for a Palestinian state. In its aftermath, 800,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands. Your post mentions none of this. https://t.co/Fn1aY788Tc
— UJA-Federation of New York (@UJAfedNY) May 15, 2026
Referencing the translation of Nakba, US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) wrote on X, “The only catastrophe here is a mayor of New York who lets antisemitic mobs run wild to terrorize law-abiding Jewish New Yorkers while he spreads anti-Israel propaganda.”
“Rewriting history to portray the existence of Israel itself as the original sin is not education or remembrance. It is propaganda,” said New York Assemblymember Sam Berger. “This mayor constantly tries to market himself as an ally to the Jewish community while amplifying narratives that fuel hatred against the Jewish people.”
New York State Assembly member Simcha Eisenstein wrote, “Still wondering why hatred against Jews is so high in NYC? We have a mayor who is using government resources to disseminate a narrative and incite hostile propaganda.”
Still wondering why hatred against Jews is so high in NYC? We have a mayor who is using government resources to disseminate a narrative and incite hostile propaganda.
Mr. International Law guy forgot to include the fact that the Arab world rejected the UN’s partition plan to… https://t.co/TFgqRvqLqE
— Simcha Eichenstein (@SEichenstein) May 15, 2026
The post came the same day as anti-Zionist demonstrators gathered in Manhattan for Nakba Day rallies, with footage showing protesters carrying a Hezbollah flag, stepping on Israeli flags, shouting for Israel’s destruction, and confronting police.
The timing also contrasted with Mamdani’s own statement days earlier praising law enforcement for arresting a man accused of planning an Iran-backed attack on a New York synagogue. Mamdani had said the arrest “comes amid an alarming rise in antisemitism across the country.”
“Let me be clear: Antisemitism, violent extremism, and terrorism have no place in our city. This kind of hate is despicable,” he said.
The UJA-Federation later said it would not attend Monday night’s Jewish American Heritage Month celebration at Gracie Mansion because it was being hosted by a mayor who “denies a core pillar of our heritage — the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” according to a statement carried by the New York Post.
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said he would also skip the event. His group organizes the Israel Day Parade at the end of the month, which Mamdani has said he will not attend, breaking with past mayoral practice.
New Yorkers “expect leadership that lowers the temperature, brings people together, and makes every community feel seen, respected, and safe, including Jewish New Yorkers,” Treyger wrote in an X post criticizing Mamdani’s Nakba Day video.
New York is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. For the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers, the connection to Israel is not political or social media theater. It is ancestral, spiritual, historic, and deeply personal.
At a moment of rising… https://t.co/UbyOX52Ded
— Mark Treyger
(@MarkTreyger718) May 15, 2026
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Pakistan Sends New Iranian Peace Proposal to US
A woman walks past an anti-US billboard depicting US President Donald Trump and the Strait of Hormuz, in Tehran, Iran, May 17, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran sent a new peace proposal to the United States with terms that appeared similar to offers Washington has previously rejected, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that the US had softened positions on some issues.
A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad, which has conveyed messages between the sides in the war in the Middle East since hosting the only round of peace talks last month, had shared the latest proposal with Washington. But the source suggested progress had been difficult.
The sides “keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said, adding: “We don’t have much time.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Tehran’s views had been “conveyed to the American side through Pakistan” but gave no details. Washington did not immediately comment.
The Iranian proposal, as described by the senior Iranian source, appeared similar in many respects to Iran’s previous offer, which US President Donald Trump rejected last week as “garbage.”
It would focus first on securing an end to the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil supply route that Iran has effectively blockaded – and lifting maritime sanctions.
Contentious issues around Iran’s nuclear program and uranium enrichment would be deferred to later rounds of talks, the source said.
However, in an apparent softening of Washington’s stance, the senior Iranian source said the United States had agreed to release a quarter of Iran’s frozen funds – totaling tens of billions of dollars – held in foreign banks. Iran wants all the assets released.
The Iranian source also said Washington had shown more flexibility in agreeing to let Iran continue some peaceful nuclear activity under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency separately quoted an unidentified source as saying the US had agreed to waive oil sanctions on Iran while negotiations were under way.
Iranian officials did not immediately comment on Tasnim’s report, which a US official, who declined to be named, said was false.
FRAGILE CEASEFIRE
A fragile ceasefire is in place after six weeks of war that followed US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran. But talks mediated by Pakistan have stalled and Trump has said the ceasefire is “on life support.”
Washington has previously demanded Tehran dismantle its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Iran has been demanding compensation for war damage, an end to a US blockade of Iranian ports and a halt to fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social at the weekend that “the Clock is Ticking” for Iran, adding that “they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump is expected to meet top national security advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for resuming military action, Axios reported.
Baghaei said Tehran was prepared for all scenarios.
“As for their threats, rest assured that we are fully aware of how to respond appropriately to even the smallest mistake from the opposing side,” he told a televised weekly press conference.