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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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Netanyahu pushes back on Vance’s claims that US is Israel’s ‘only powerful ally’
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Vice President JD Vance’s recent claims that the U.S. is Israel’s “only powerful ally” left in the world.
When asked on Fox News Sunday what his reaction was to Vance’s remarks, which came as Israeli ministers criticized the framework deal signed by the U.S. and Iran to end hostilities, Netanyahu replied, “I respect JD Vance. We have a very good relationship, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that he says.”
“I have to point out this: Donald Trump is a great, the greatest friend we ever had in the White House, and I stand by that completely,” Netanyahu continued. “Secondly, we have some other friends, like a small country called India, you know, it has 1.4 billion people, and boy, do we have a tremendous support there.”
Netanyahu added that Israel also has the support of “many others,” but did not elaborate on which countries he was referring to.
“The relations are not quite as they appear, and we have, we have many, many friends, and I have to tell you, we also take care of our friends, especially the Christians in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister also dismissed the claim that there was any rift between the United States and Israel regarding the deal with Iran, telling Fox that he and President Donald Trump were “set on the same goal.”
“President Trump is the leader of the United States. He does what’s good for America. I’m the leader of Israel, the one and only Jewish state. I do what’s good for Israel,” Netanyahu said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, we see eye to eye, but as any, in any family, in any close friendship, there are sometimes differences of opinion, and we discuss them openly.”
Netanyahu also said that he and Trump have “common objectives” regarding the U.S. deal with Iran.
“We want to see Iran give up its nuclear weapons program. We want to see the nuclear enriched material removed. We want to see the enrichment sites for nuclear material dismantled,” Netanyahu said, adding, “as long as I’m prime minister, Iran will not have nuclear weapons.”
On Saturday, Trump told Axios that Netanyahu had requested a meeting at the White House and said that the pair gets along “very good” and that the Israeli leader “knows who the boss is.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu pushes back on Vance’s claims that US is Israel’s ‘only powerful ally’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Former Israeli hostages Sasha Trufanov and Sapir Cohen wed in emotional ceremony
(JTA) — Two former Israeli hostages have wed, in the first marriage of hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Sasha Trufanov and Sapir Cohen were visiting Trufanov’s family on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7 when they were attacked and abducted to Gaza. Trufanov’s father was murdered. Cohen was freed during a temporary ceasefire after 55 days, while Trufanov was held for nearly 500 days.
They married on Sunday in Israel, in a ceremony attended by multiple former hostages as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who posted a picture of himself under the chuppah, or wedding canopy, with Trufanov and Cohen.
“We prayed for your return, we were moved to tears when you came back home, and this evening we were privileged to rejoice together with you and to bless you under the chuppah on your joyous day,” Herzog wrote.
While other freed hostages have celebrated births and engagements, the wedding is the first for a former hostage. It comes just days after Israel marked the 1,000th day since Oct. 7, and as the government’s handling of the hostage crisis continues to roil Israeli politics ahead of a looming election. Last week, Nitzan Alon, an Israeli army major general who was part of a small hostage negotiation team, said at a conference that more hostages could have been returned alive had the Israeli government made different decisions, strengthening a widespread belief within Israel.
Alon, too, was present at Trufanov and Cohen’s wedding.
After Trufanov stepped on a glass, the traditional signal for the execution of the marriage, Eyal Golan’s “Am Yisrael Chai,” an anthem of Jewish and Israeli solidarity during the Gaza war, began playing.
Rom Braslavski, another hostage who was briefly held with Trufanov in Gaza, posted pictures of himself with his friend at the wedding, as well as a video of him and the newly married couple being hoisted to dance.
“Today, we are together, not in Rafah, not stuffed in a trunk, but free and you are in a beautiful groom’s suit marrying Sapir. How much you talked about her, my brother,” he wrote on Instagram. “There is nothing happier for me than accompanying you on this day, and I hope both of you will bring into the world happy little children and that they won’t know evil. May they not know war, with God’s help.”
Another wedding featuring a former hostage is scheduled for next month. Eliya Cohen, who was held for 505 days, marked his engagement to Ziv Abud in a party that took place last week. He wore a jacket that read “Bring them Home” when other grooms wore it during the hostage crisis. With all hostages out of Gaza since January, Cohen altered it to read “Dad, thank you,” a mantra that he said sustained him during his captivity.
Cohen did not know that Abud had survived the attack on the Nova music festival until after his release. While he was held hostage, she drew attention to his plight by setting a romantic table with an unfilled place on the boardwalk in Tel Aviv.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Former Israeli hostages Sasha Trufanov and Sapir Cohen wed in emotional ceremony appeared first on The Forward.
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Hundreds of Patriot Front members march in Washington on July 4, alarming Jewish groups
(JTA) — Hundreds of people affiliated with the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, in a July 4 show of force by the group founded by a veteran of a landmark 2017 far-right rally that featured an antisemitic chant.
The marchers in Washington wore masks and some carried Confederate flags, according to reports and video from the scene. At times, they chanted “Reclaim America!” — a rallying cry channeling the group’s nativist agenda.
While Patriot Front’s public activities mostly center on its anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ agenda, the Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly cited the group, founded in 2017, as the largest purveyor of antisemitic materials in the United States.
One of the group’s signature slogans, which members displayed on a banner in Washington in 2023, is “No Zionists in Government.”
The previous year, the group’s internal communications, obtained and leaked by an independent media collective, showed that some members used Nazi slogans and that one member was accepted on the basis of an application in which he declared that the “biggest threat to America is Jewish domination over the world.” Group leaders criticized how the chat logs had been obtained but did not challenge the veracity of their contents.
In a statement on Sunday, the ADL called Patriot Front “the most visible white supremacist group operating in the U.S. today” and noted that its previous public rallies had been much smaller.
“The size of the march is concerning,” the ADL said about the Saturday rally.
Patriot Front’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, was a leading participant in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which attendees chanted “Jews will not replace us” while carrying burning torches. The chant refers to an antisemitic conspiracy theory positing that Jews are engineering mass immigration in order to displace white people. Rousseau later testified that he heard the chant but thought attendees might have been saying “you will not replace us.”
The 2017 rally fueled criticism of President Donald Trump, who did not immediately comment on it and then placed blame on “both sides” while condemning the display of “hatred, bigotry and violence.” It also animated the presidential run of Joe Biden and spurred a successful lawsuit against the rally’s organizers by an advocacy group called Integrity First for America, whose leader, Amy Spitalnick, is now CEO of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs.
“Patriot Front is an offshoot of one of the white supremacist groups we (successfully) sued for orchestrating the Charlottesville violence,” Spitalnick said in a JCPA statement on Sunday. “They are emboldened because their extremism has been wholly normalized by the administration and others.”
Trump has not commented publicly on this weekend’s Patriot Front march, which took place during festivities to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday. A top administration official did not directly answer when CNN’s Dana Bash asked him whether he would urge Trump to denounce the group.
“What they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told Bash, who is Jewish and has made antisemitism a focus of her recent coverage. “But one of the foundational principles of the United States, which makes democracy messy, is free speech.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Hundreds of Patriot Front members march in Washington on July 4, alarming Jewish groups appeared first on The Forward.
