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ESPN’s Jeff Passan opens up on his Hebrew school upbringing, interviewing Sandy Koufax and Jewish baseball history
(JTA) — For tuned-in baseball fans, Jeff Passan is everywhere. As ESPN’s senior MLB insider, he frequently breaks some of the sport’s biggest news and appears on several of the global sports network’s television, radio and podcast programs.
After two decades of reporting, can anything make him nervous? There is one athlete who does: Jewish legend Sandy Koufax.
“Generally speaking, when I’m talking to people, I’ll call them by their first name. He was Mr. Koufax,” Passan told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the pitcher he once wrote a paper about for Hebrew school.
While a columnist for Yahoo! Sports, Passan spent about four years reporting his 2016 New York Times best-selling book “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports,” a deep-dive into pitching and the epidemic of what’s known in the sport as Tommy John surgery, or ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction.
Koufax, known for his on-the-field dominance and his refusal to pitch on Yom Kippur during the 1965 World Series, walked away from baseball at only 30 years old because of injury. So as Passan began work on his book, he knew he needed to talk to Koufax.
Koufax is famously private, and securing a rare interview wasn’t easy — Passan enlisted fellow Jewish writer Jane Leavy, Koufax’s biographer, who put in a good word for him. When the time came to talk, Passan said it was the most nervous he’s ever been for an interview.
“I was in awe the whole time,” Passan said in a phone interview from Arizona, where he’s covering spring training.
Koufax’s pitching prowess aside, Passan praised the principled stance the former Dodger took all those years ago.
“The way that he represented himself, the way he honored Judaism, and, when it was an incredibly difficult thing, stuck by what mattered to him, I think that’s applicable across religions, across cultures, across backgrounds,” Passan said. “If you feel passionate about who you are, and something is important to you, even when it’s uncomfortable, you should stand by it. That’s exactly what he did. I have an undying amount of respect for him for both doing that and just for the way that he has and continues to carry himself.”
A Cleveland native, Passan fell in love with both baseball and writing at a young age. His father, Rich, worked at the Plain Dealer for 42 years, and Passan said he got his first byline at 14 years old. He would go on to cover sports at Syracuse University, the Fresno Bee, the Kansas City Star, Yahoo! Sports and, since 2019, at ESPN.
Passan, 42, grew up in a Conservative Jewish household, attending Hebrew school three times a week. He said he considers himself a “cultural Jew” — noting that his wife is Catholic and they are raising their kids without religion.
“I look at religion now as being a really important thing for lots of people, but the sort of thing that for me and my family, we’d like for our children to be a little more worldly until, or if, they decide to choose to go the religious route,” he said.
Jeff Passan at his bar mitzvah, Oct. 9, 1993. (Courtesy of Passan)
Passan said he and his family celebrate Hanukkah — he’s a big fan of latkes — and he fasts on Yom Kippur. And then there’s Jewish geography.
“When I run into someone who’s Jewish, even though I’m not particularly religious, and he or she may not be particularly religious, there’s still a connection there because of how we were raised and the things that you learn growing up a Jew,” he said. “If there’s one thing that I look at with regret that my kids don’t have, because we’re not raising them Jewish, it’s that.”
That instant connection is present in the press box, too.
“We know who we are,” Passan said. “There was one World Series where I think there were like seven or eight Jewish writers sitting in a row. And we said all we need is a few more and we got a minyan here.”
Passan said he also feels that camaraderie with Jewish players — especially those who play for Team Israel during the World Baseball Classic, which is coming up next month.
“It’s different than Team USA or the Dominican Republic or Venezuela,” he said. “It’s a cultural team. It’s a team that’s often based around your religion or the religion in your family, and I think that makes it a unique group of players who may not have that same connection or that same feel to Israel, but they have that shared experience of being Jewish and knowing what that entails.”
The presence of Jewish talent in Major League Baseball — and on Team Israel, which features more big leaguers this year than ever before — is noticeably greater than it has been in years. The 2021 World Series, which featured four Jewish players, is a prime example.
“I think it’s just another way to illustrate that we can be everything,” Passan said. “If you are growing up and you want to be a rabbi, that’s wonderful. If you’re growing up and you want to get into media, that avenue is there for you. And if you’re growing up and want to be a baseball player, there are no limitations. The history of Jewish baseball players, while not extensive, is nevertheless rich.”
And what is it, exactly, about baseball that has endeared the sport to American Jews for so long? Passan has some theories.
First, he noted the historical significance New York has held in both baseball and American Judaism. For a period in the early-to-mid 20th century, New York was home to three MLB teams — the Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants.
“As Jews, we really gravitate toward things that have history and substance,” Passan said. “Baseball being so big in the emergence of sporting culture in the United States, there’s a gravitas to that, there’s an import to that, that I think Jews really are attracted to.”
The other aspect that has bonded Jews and baseball, Passan said, is its shared culture of family tradition.
“It’s something that can be passed on from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters,” he said. “Family is such a vital part of being Jewish. Just as we pass down customs and traditions, sports are among those customs and traditions and baseball is a generational sport.”
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The post ESPN’s Jeff Passan opens up on his Hebrew school upbringing, interviewing Sandy Koufax and Jewish baseball history appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same.
Bruce David’s magnum opus is a psychedelic lithograph depicting practically the entire Torah. Over eight months, David filled it with a plethora of hidden symbols: If you look closely, you can see Joshua blowing a shofar, which hugs the Israeli flag. Squint even more and you’ll notice Joshua’s face is the flared end of an even bigger shofar that encompasses the Ten Commandments, a shofar made up of dozens of small people, seven of whom hold flames as if making a human menorah.
To understand every hidden image in just this one painting would take more words than I have space for. David gave me the “short version” of the piece’s story on Zoom — it still took six minutes.
Although David has now spent decades making Jewish art — prints, mosaics, stained glass and metal works — and exhibiting it across the country, it wasn’t what he had anticipated doing with his life. David doesn’t have any formal art training and for several years, he lost touch with his Judaism.
“Oftentimes I’ll refer to myself as a deeply flawed holy man wannabe,” David told me over Zoom from his house in Bloomington, Indiana. “But I always had this spiritual pull.”
David grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, with a Reform father and a mother from an Orthodox family. His Orthodox grandmother, Bess Harris — who he described as a force to be reckoned with — was a particular influence on him.
“I really learned my Jewish heart from her and her love of God,” David said. “She was involved with starting a Jewish day school, a Jewish nursing home, the synagogue, and she would lead trips to Israel.”
But traditional religious practice didn’t speak to him when he was a kid. He told me that one time he even climbed out of the window during Hebrew school to go play basketball.
Years later, his wife Diane was the one who helped him find new ways to connect with Judaism. Although she was raised Catholic, Diane was curious about Judaism. David needed to refresh himself on the answers.
“We started looking at the different aspects of Judaism and different things started to make sense,” David told me. “Shabbat made sense — you know, everybody needs a time to rest, recharge. Yom Kippur makes sense as a time to forgive and be forgiven. Rosh Hashanah to start again. Sukkot to get out and celebrate and get close to nature.”
When the couple met, David’s job was making deliveries for his grandfather’s wholesale store in Louisville. For David’s 30th birthday, Diane gave him a set of pigment pencils and the art started flowing out of him. Many of his pieces are concerned with biblical stories — like his mosaic of Jonah emerging onto the shores of Nineveh or his rainbow colored print of Balaam and his donkey — and he refers to them as “visual midrash.”
Unsure what to do with his art, David went to the Hillel at Indiana University Bloomington to see if the rabbi had any ideas. The rabbi connected him with art professor Mazelle Van Buskirk who was taken with David’s work. She arranged for an exhibit at IU’s School of Fine Arts, making him the first community artist to be given such an honor and kicking off his career.
He has presented his art at Jewish schools and exhibited it at events like the National Hadassah Conference, the Cincinnati Jewish Folk Festival, and the Coalition for Alternatives to Jewish Education. His work has been on the cover of books and Jewish publications. Many of the events that have had the greatest impact on David’s life were unplanned.
“We’ve always lived our lives on miracles,” David told me.
Among these, David said, was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, “the Singing Rabbi” who wrote hundreds of liturgical melodies in the 20th century, conducting a (planned) conversion for Diane and an (unplanned) wedding ceremony for the couple in the 80s.
“We went to the mikvah for the conversion,” David told me. “And then he tells us ‘Oh by the way we’re going to marry you Saturday night after Shabbat.’”
Another miracle happened when David met a couple looking for someone to manage 29 acres in Bloomington overlooking Monroe Lake. Nature lovers, the couple quickly took the opportunity to live somewhere they could connect with the earth. David’s admiration for natural forms can also be found in much of his art; the shapes tend to flow and bend.
Over the 46 years that the couple has lived on their property, they’ve turned it into a home base for their Jewish worship and educational group Light of the Nations, which conducts lessons at various synagogues and JCCs through art and music. They host parties for Sukkot and the solar eclipse on their huge lawn, welcoming dozens of visitors.
David said they wanted their home to be a “place where people come out and get close to nature in life and slow down.”
Seventy-five years old and battling blood cancer, David is now spending his time focusing on helping people connect to Judaism in a holistic way and see the beauty that brought him back to religion. He’s slowed down on exhibiting his art, instead working on making sure Light of the Nations’ mission can continue once he is gone and that his art will find a home.
David hopes that people recognize in his art “that there’s this amazing, incredible life force influencing all creation.”
The post He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same. appeared first on The Forward.
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Metropolitan Police investigating abuse of Jewish attendees at London Pride
(JTA) — London’s Metropolitan Police launched an investigation Monday into antisemitic abuse at a Pride parade after videos and pictures circulated on social media showed Jewish participants enduring taunts at Saturday’s event.
The police department said in a statement that officers were “aware of videos circulating online that show antisemitic verbal abuse directed towards attendees” at the parade in central London and that footage was being reviewed to assess whether criminal offenses had been committed. The department added that it “continues to work hard to tackle hate crimes of all types.”
Videos shared online show people carrying rainbow flags incorporating the Star of David being confronted by individuals shouting “Free Palestine.” The harassment escalated with attendees shouting, “Go back to your Zionist homeland,” “You kill Arab children, you kill gay children,” “F*** you, Jew,” and “How many babies did you kill?”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reached out to Pride in London for comment. The group had not replied by press time.
The incident comes amid heightened concern over antisemitism in Britain since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, with a record number of antisemitic incidents reported over the past two years. It also comes as Pride celebrations around the world have been roiled by tensions over Israel and antisemitism.
Pride in London drew tens of thousands of participants and visitors to the Soho neighborhood in the British capital. Some Jewish LGBTQ+ organizations have in recent years chosen not to participate in Pride, citing hostility towards Zionist Jews. But this year, around 150 people marched as part of a Jewish bloc at the event.
Organizers said the return this year followed discussions with Pride in London over Jewish inclusion and commitments that organizers would undertake antisemitism awareness training in partnership with the Community Security Trust, the main security consultant to the Jewish community. Jewish LGBTQ group Keshet UK stated earlier this year that the measures were intended to help ensure Jewish LGBTQ+ participants could march “safely and openly” following concerns raised after Oct. 7.
It was not clear whether the Jewish marchers who endured the abuse were part of the official Jewish bloc – accounts from marchers who stayed with the Jewish bloc were generally positive.
“A few people came and chanted ‘free, free, Palestine,’” Israeli author and LGBTQ+ activist Hen Mazzig told JTA. “They were passing through. And there was another person who was at a cafe and then they came by and they were just staring at us.”
Mazzig shared footage from the event on X, writing, ”My pride is not affected by the opinions of others. I am gay, I am Jewish, and I’m here to stay. Am Yisrael chai.”
Mazzig splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, because his husband is British. He told JTA in a phone interview that Saturday’s incidents “were scary, especially when a Pride parade is supposed to be inclusive.”
Mazzig said that since Oct, 7, circumstances have been exceptionally challenging for the British Jewish community “but specifically for LGBTQ youth that are being forced to choose between their Jewish identity and their queer identity.”
Mazzig claimed that Jewish marchers are not accepted unless they specify that they are anti-Zionist. “Every statement of solidarity with LGBTQ Jews seems to come with a ‘but,’” he said. ‘We support you, but not if you’re physically Jewish, not if you’re supporting Israel. You have to renounce half of your identity first.’ That’s not equality.”
In advance of Saturday’s event, some 650 Met police officers were deployed to enforce “zero tolerance” on hate crimes and to ensure that attendees could “safely and securely” enjoy the parade.
When JTA asked the Metropolitan police why at least two policemen appeared to stand by as Jews were subject to abuse, the Met requested that JTA provide the video in question. After being supplied with the video, the Met later told JTA that it had nothing further to add at this stage but would provide an update if it did.
Mazzig said the Met police should consider the abuse at the parade “shameful and it should alarm everyone.”
He added, “I hope that we stop debating whether or not antisemitism is real and accept it. And that communities that are supposed to be inclusive and pluralistic start taking action.”
The post Metropolitan Police investigating abuse of Jewish attendees at London Pride appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s diaspora minister calls Erdogan a ‘grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar’
(JTA) — Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli compared Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Adolf Hitler and slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a post on X on Monday.
“We all know how narcissistic power-obsessed fanatics like you begin and how they end. The Jewish people have never feared mere flesh and blood, from Pharaoh until today,” Chikli wrote. “You are nothing but a pathetic blood soaked zero who history will soon forget.”
In the post, Chikli accused the Turkish leader of being a “patron of Hamas and ISIS” and described him as a “grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar” alongside an AI image of Erdogan in front of a Nazi flag.
Chikli’s post was in response to an address by Erdogan last month, in which the Turkish leader called Zionism a “genocidal occupying expansionist ideology” and said the “struggle” against Zionism was for the “collective survival of ourselves and our nation.”
Long-standing tensions between Turkey and Israel stoked by the war in Gaza have escalated in recent weeks, amid increasing Israeli concerns over the tight ties between Ankara and Washington and the possible sale of advanced American F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. Erdogan, who has consistently voiced support for Hamas, has been one of Israel’s most outspoken international critics.
Chikli’s post followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blistering attack against Erdogan during an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Fox News Monday. Netanyahu said Turkey was “governed by a man who calls openly for the annihilation of Israel…and talks openly about conquering Jerusalem.”
The Israeli leader warned against the sale of weaponry to Ankara, portraying Turkey as an aggressive country that didn’t help the U.S. battle Iran. He spoke in advance of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to Ankara late Tuesday for a two-day summit of NATO.
“For a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘death to America’ from that side of the spectrum, I don’t think they should be given F-35’s or the engines for their fighter jets,” Netanyahu told Fox News.
Such a sale would “upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and … by America’s posture in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
Relations between the two regional powers have also been aggravated by the Israeli government’s June 28 decision to recognize the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after World War I.
Turkey has condemned Israel’s recognition of the Armenian genocide. It’s a move so diplomatically controversial that to date, only some 33 countries, aside from Israel, have taken this step, including the U.S. in 2021.
According to Politico, Erdogan said in a public address last week, “We do not give the slightest heed to the slanders about our country from the murder network that has the blood of 73,000 innocent Gazans, most of them children and women, on its hands.”
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, also took aim at Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, during a press conference in Jerusalem Monday, decrying Fidan’s comments to CNN Türk on Friday in which he said that Israel had become a “burden that humanity can no longer bear.”
“The remarks by Turkey’s Foreign Minister are a clear call for genocide,” Saar said. “The Jewish people know all too well what happens when such words are allowed to go unanswered. The first step on the road to genocide is dehumanization.”
The post Israel’s diaspora minister calls Erdogan a ‘grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar’ appeared first on The Forward.
