Uncategorized
Wild pitch: How an Israeli kibbutznik became a Cincinnati Reds pitching coach
KIBBUTZ GEZER, Israel (JTA) — Bill James, the influential baseball writer, historian and statistician, once described the great Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly in only four words: “100% ballplayer, 0% bulls—.”
The same can be said of Alon Leichman, by all accounts the first athlete born and raised in Israel to make it to the major leagues, having just been named assistant pitching coach of the Cincinnati Reds.
Under manager David Bell, Leichman will help instruct the team’s pitchers — including Chase Anderson, Luis Cessa, Fernando Cruz, Alexis Díaz and Hunter Greene — on mechanics, pitch selection, preparation, concentration and execution.
His journey has been unlikely, verging on preposterous: How could someone from Israel, where baseball is barely an afterthought, step out of the wheat fields of a kibbutz to the highest level of baseball in the world?
The 33-year-old Leichman is the product of Kibbutz Gezer, the youngest child born to two idealists who grew up in Zionist youth groups and helped found this kibbutz in central Israel in the 1970s together with other Anglo — that is, English-speaking — Zionists.
But David, Alon’s father, couldn’t leave it all behind in Queens, New York. He was a baseball fan, a big baseball fan — “I always knew that if, God forbid, there’s a fire in my house, I know where my baseball glove is” — and one day, he and his fellow kibbutz residents had an idea: Why don’t we cut off a slice of the wheat crop and construct a regulation-sized field in the southwest corner of the kibbutz, where we can all go play when we get off work?
That was 1983, and there wasn’t a single baseball or softball field in all of Israel So David, who was in charge of construction on the kibbutz (Alon’s mother, Miri, is the kibbutz rabbi), built his field of dreams, just 450 yards from his front door and in the shadow of the 4,000-year-old archaeological site that gives Gezer its name.
And that’s where Alon Leichman grew up, first brought to the field by his father for the 1989 Maccabiah Games, five weeks after Alon was born on May 29.
“I never related to that field as the place my dad built,” Leichman said. “It was a field that was on the kibbutz. Growing up, everyone around me played — my older brother played, and all my friends, a little older than me, played.
David Leichman, left, stands behind the backstop at the baseball field he helped build at Kibbutz Gezer in Israel, where his son Alon, right, learned the game that has brought him to the major leagues. (Elli Wohlgelernter)
“I remember — I was 4, in gan [pre-kindergarten], and I would walk to the baseball field and practice. I vividly remember being in the gan and going to practice. But baseball on the kibbutz is just something that I grew into. Everyone did it; I was not special, just another kid who played. I happened to love it a lot.”
So he played and played and got better and better. By age 10, he was on the team representing Israel at a tournament in the Netherlands. But baseball in Israel back then was in its infancy, and there was not enough money to pay for the team to travel. So Leichman had to work extra hours to get the kibbutz to fly him over.
Not that he wasn’t used to working — like all kibbutz members, he was already contributing by third grade. But now he had to put in extra hours, picking olives or milking cows, to make the extra money.
“I liked milking cows,” he recalled. “Sometimes it’s hard work, but I got more of a kick out of it than hitting an olive tree” to shake loose the olives.
Leichman remembers well that tournament in Holland, the first time he wore the Israeli uniform representing his country abroad.
“It was really cool,” he recalled. “A sense of pride. That’s the first time I think I felt like: ‘You’re not just Alon, you’re not just representing the kibbutz anymore — you’re representing a whole country.’
“I knew back then that Israel was not on the best terms [with] the world. So it was something that I was aware of: that part of our job of playing baseball is also making sure that these guys get to know Israelis other than what they hear on the news and show them that, you know, we’re good people.”
The 5’-8” right-hander kept playing, kept improving and kept representing Israel at tournaments. He played in the one-season Israel Baseball League in 2007 as the second-youngest player, served in the Israeli army from 2007 to 2010, and then headed to the states to play college ball at two schools, Cypress College and the University of California, San Diego.
In his first appearance at Cypress, his elbow blew out, and he needed what’s known as “Tommy John surgery” to repair a torn ulnar ligament inside the elbow. Then he got hurt again and had a second Tommy John surgery. But when he got hurt a third time, and the doctor said he needed to go under the knife yet again, Leichman knew that his hopes for a professional playing career were over.
But not before proving to himself that he had what it takes.
“I know I was good in Israel. I knew that. But I had no idea how I would fare coming to the States. I thought I could fare [well] there, but I really never knew because I had never faced those types of hitters. And then, in my first game, I did really well for two and a third innings, four strikeouts. No one got on. It was 1-2-3, 1-2-3, and then I got the first guy out in the ninth. And on a one-two fastball, my elbow popped. So it was like, ‘Okay, I can do this here.’”
His love for the game never left him, and Leichman grew into an insightful and intuitive coach. His expertise and aptitude were self-evident.
Various jerseys from Alon Leichman’s baseball career are displayed on the wall of his family’s home at Kibbutz Gezer, Israel. (Elli Wohlgelernter)
“Alon will be a big-league coach one day,” pitcher and teammate Alex Katz said three years ago. “It’s hard to get a coaching job in affiliate ball without professional experience, let alone non-affiliated experience. But he’s just one of the most intelligent baseball minds I’ve ever been around. And he’s young.”
Leichman said his strength is “helping guys get better. Communicating with them. Being able to relate to them. Getting on their level. Simplifying it for them. And being creative and finding ways to throw more strikes.”
Despite the surgeries, Leichman could still pitch, if he did it sparingly. He joined Israel’s World Baseball Classic teams of 2012, 2016 and 2017 as a player or coach; pitched for the European Baseball Championship team in 2019; threw in the Olympic qualifying tournaments in 2019; and hurled one perfect inning against Team USA at the Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo. Along the way, he also earned a black belt in jujitsu.
But coaching was his future, and after being given a chance in 2017 to instruct in the Seattle Mariners farm system, Leichman kept moving up, from Single A to Double AA to Triple AAA, before being grabbed by the Reds to join their major league staff this season.
His father is overwhelmed. “It’s unbelievable,” David Leichman said. “I’m still shaking and crying to myself about how wonderful this has been. It’s really amazing.”
Alon is no less shell-shocked, having agreed to sign a contract with the Reds on the same day the New York Mets asked to interview him about a potential job.
“It’s not really sinking in yet, to be honest,” he said while in Israel recently to visit his family on Gezer. “But it’s definitely a dream come true, something I’ve been dreaming about since I’m a little kid. Obviously, I wanted to be there as a player, but once I got hurt and realized that playing was not an option anymore, I started pursuing coaching. I wanted to do it at the highest level. The dream remained; it just took a different route. But it’s still as exciting.”
Leichman is still undecided on whether to join Team Israel’s coaching staff in Florida for the WBC in March before heading back to Goodyear, Arizona, to rejoin the Reds in spring training. But this product of the wheat fields of Gezer won’t ever forget from where he’s come: His uniform numeral, 29, is a constant reminder. It’s his laundry tag number at the kibbutz.
—
The post Wild pitch: How an Israeli kibbutznik became a Cincinnati Reds pitching coach appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jewish Chef Eitan Bernath Sets New Guinness World Record for Making Largest Matzah Ball Soup
Eitan Bernath set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup on Feb. 27, 2026. Photo: Eric Vitale
Jewish chef and cookbook author Eitan Bernath recently set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup.
The matzah ball soup weighed in at 1,356.9 pounds and was verified by Guinness World Records in Brooklyn, New York, on Feb. 27. The soup contained 847 hand-rolled matzah balls, and it took 10 chefs about 11 hours to prepare the soup, according to the Guinness World Records. All the soup was donated to City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization, which will serve it to thousands of hungry New Yorkers in food pantries and soup kitchens.
“There’s no food that brings back more memories of being surrounded by family than matzo ball soup,” Bernath, 23, told The Algemeiner in a statement. “So, when I set out to make the world’s largest version of a dish, choosing matzo ball soup was a no-brainer. Every bowl is a bowl of comfort. Being able to create a giant version was both an incredible challenge and a thrill. It meant even more to me that after setting the record, we were able to donate all the soup to New Yorkers in need — sharing the comfort of matzo ball soup even further.”
Bernath — who is also a social media content creator and the principal culinary contributor for “The Drew Barrymore Show” — said the matzah ball soup was comprised of 120 chickens, 300 carrots, and 250 bunches of herbs. The soup also included parsnip, turnip, celery root, onions, parsley, dill, paprika, and salt. Bernath used ChatGPT to scale up his grandmother’s matzo ball soup recipe to a 200-gallon version, and to help him also find the right vessels needed to make such a large portion. To hold more than 160 gallons of hot liquid, he ended up using a water trough, typically used for horses, which was lined with a food-grade liner.
On Instagram, Bernath shared behind-the-scenes photos that show the making of the massive matzah ball soup. In the caption, he explained that creating the record-breaking dish “was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.”
“As a proud Jew, creating a record-setting giant version of such an important Jewish dish meant the world to me,” he added. “I couldn’t be prouder of my team and I for pulling this off. I will never look at a bowl of matzo ball soup the same again!!”
Uncategorized
The real reason for the US war with Iran may have nothing to do with Israel
The lack of a clear, coherent reason for this war is bad for the Jews.
Overstatement? Consider that Tucker Carlson is now blaming Chabad — yes, Chabad — for the conflict. Yesterday the watchdog organization The Nexus Project released a series of posts on X clarifying how to have a “robust debate about the U.S.-Israel war with Iran” without veering into antisemitism — because certain parties seem to have come to the consensus that, to put it bluntly, the Jews did it.
Americans need a good reason to shed blood thousands of miles away, and the problem is that while President Donald Trump has taken the United States to war, neither he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nor anyone else in his administration has offered a convincing explanation as to why.
So pundits like Carlson are filling the void with poison. As I wrote last summer during the first U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran, if the war goes badly, fingers will point at Israel and its supporters. It’s clear, now, that the blame game is also going to generate a huge amount of antisemitism.
A default explanation
Why strike now? Is it because of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, the one that Trump previously boasted the U.S. “obliterated” last summer? Is it because the Iranian regime has taken American hostages, killed American service personnel and sponsored terror abroad?
All those things are true, but they’ve been true for decades. So why now?
Sen. Tom Cotton, defending the choice to go to war, said on Fox News that “Iran has been an imminent threat to the United States for 47 years.”
That stretch of the word “imminent” only underscored the, um, imminent need for a better reason.
The lack of one has left Israel and its American Jewish supporters as the default scapegoat. Rubio told reporters earlier this week that the U.S. attacked Iran because Israel had decided to do so, and the U.S. had to join in because Iran would then hit back at U.S. targets.
He and the president later tried to clarify that the U.S. was going to attack anyway, and Israel’s intentions only influenced the timing.
Few on the left or right, or around the world, are buying it.
“No war for Israel!” former Marine and Green Party Senate candidate Brian McGuinness shouted during a congressional committee hearing March 4, before Capitol police and Sen. Tim Sheehy dragged him out. (McGinnis claimed his arm was broken in the process.)
“It’s hard to say this, but the United States didn’t make the decision here. Benjamin Netanyahu did,” said Carlson, days before he pivoted to blaming Chabad. The left-leaning investigative outlet The Lever titled its piece on America’s Operation Epic Fury, “Operation AIPAC Fury.”
The China syndrome
The Israeli commentator Haviv Rettig Gur stepped into this mess with a thoughtful and convincing explanation: That the attack is part of a great power game, as the U.S. makes a bid to stop Iran from being a Middle East outpost of Chinese power.
“America is in this fight because of China,” Gur wrote in an essay in The Free Press earlier this week.
After decades of effective American-led economic sanctions, Gur explained, Iran has become economically dependent on China through oil exports, which fund roughly a quarter of Tehran’s budget and sustain its military and internal security. China, which receives 90% of Iran’s crude oil, has used it to build a petroleum reserve that hedges against a potential U.S. naval blockade.
Furthermore, China has armed Iran with advanced anti-ship missiles, hardened its cyber infrastructure, conducted joint naval exercises, and given it the wherewithal to control global trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
Gur isn’t alone in asserting that what matters to the U.S. isn’t Israel’s immediate needs, but rather the China-U.S. chessboard.
China, wrote Zineb Riboua, a scholar of Chinese-Middle East politics, “bet a decade of foreign policy on Khamenei’s ability to withstand American pressure, and the bet did not pay off.”
Gur, Riboua and others making this argument might be wrong. And their reasoning still raises questions of “why now?” that are hard to answer. But it’s striking that it sounds so much more coherent than anything that’s been offered by our government.
Why we fight
Right now, about 60% of Americans oppose the war. As it drags on, and casualties and costs mount, those polling numbers will get worse — especially without a clear rationale to explain why the suffering is necessary.
One casualty of every modern Mideast war is the standing of American Jews.
After the first Gulf War in 1991, the ADL recorded 1,879 antisemitic incidents — an 11% spike over the prior year. It was the highest number since tracking began, driven largely by “politically related antisemitism” in the war’s opening months.
After the second, far more unpopular Gulf War broke out in 2003, incidents climbed again — reaching 1,821 in 2004, the highest in nearly a decade. Never mind that 70-77% of American Jews opposed the Iraq War, a higher rate than any other major religious group.
Why? Because the right and left converged on the same target: Israel-supporting neoconservatives who supposedly dragged the U.S. into a war for Zionist interests. Researchers called the conspiracy a “Trojan horse” — age-old tropes about Jewish power and dual loyalty wheeled in as foreign policy critique.
And here we are again.
In the scheme of things, now, there are bigger worries. American service personnel, innocent Iranians and their Arab neighbors are in harm’s way, Israelis are once more locked down in shelters, facing the barrages of madmen.
But these sacrifices make it more, not less urgent for the administration to land on a coherent reason for this war, and a clear set of aims.
Just as the U.S. entered into World War II, the director Frank Capa made a series of propaganda films called “Why We Fight”. By then, the title was rhetorical. In early 1941, 68 % of Americans supported the campaign against Japan and Hitler. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, support was nearly unanimous.
Now, appropriately for our polarized age, we are fighting over why we are fighting. And so much is riding on the answer.
The post The real reason for the US war with Iran may have nothing to do with Israel appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Noam Bettan Releases Song ‘Michelle’ He’ll Perform as Israel’s Rep for 2026 Eurovision Song Contest
Noam Bettan in the music video for “Michelle.” Photo: YouTube screenshot
Noam Bettan revealed on Thursday the song he is set to perform when he represents Israel at the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, in May.
“Michelle” is a trilingual song written by Bettan, Nadav Aharoni, Tzlil Klifi, and Yuval Raphael, who represented Israel in last year’s Eurovision and finished in second place. The song features lyrics in Hebrew, English, and French, and premiered during a special broadcast on the Kan public broadcaster.
“‘Michelle’ tells the story of choosing to break free from a toxic emotional cycle. It’s a story about emotional growth and maturity, at the moment when the protagonist realizes they must let go and choose a new path for themselves,” Eurovision stated in its official description of the song.
“Michelle” is largely in Hebrew and French with only one verse in English. “Walking down Florentin/Ocean eyes/Memories/I, I’m losing my mind,” Bettan sings in English. “An angel but it is hell/Trapped in your carousel/Round and round/Under your spell.”
Bettan, who turned 28 on Thursday, was born in Israel and raised in the city of Ra’anana. His parents are French and lived in the French city of Grenoble before immigrating to Israel with their two older sons.
Bettan is fluent in French, Hebrew, and English. He won the Israeli television show and singing competition “HaKokhav HaBa” (“The Rising Star”) in January, which automatically secured him the position of representing Israel at this year’s Eurovision. Bettan will perform “Michelle” during the second half of the first Eurovision semi-final on May 12.
“I’m very proud of the song,” Bettan said in a released statement. “It’s a great privilege to bring such a creation to the Eurovision stage. The song is full of energy and emotion that touches on a wide range of feelings. I feel that ‘Michelle’ will bring us moments of shared joy and pride, and I hope this song can bring a little of that light with it.”
Watch the music video for “Michelle” below.