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Houston Astros star Alex Bregman celebrated Hanukkah at a local synagogue
(Houston Jewish Herald-Voice via JTA) — One month after lifting the World Series trophy at Minute Maid Park, Alex Bregman was at Houston’s Congregation Beth Yeshurun lifting a candle to lead the Hanukkah blessing.
On the fourth night of the holiday, the Astros star third baseman sat down with hundreds of congregants and talked about a wide range of topics, from his bar mitzvah speech to his favorite Hanukkah gifts, his not-yet kosher line of beef jerky and the potential bar mitzvah of his son.
The evening started with Bregman joining his wife, Reagan, and infant son, Knox, at the front of the sanctuary to light menorah candles with Beth Yeshurun Rabbis Sarah Fort and Steven Morgen, who ended the blessing with the words, “Play Ball!”
The special ceremony rekindled memories from Alex’s own childhood.
“We would go to Temple Albert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then we’d come home, invite my cousins over, light the menorah and open up presents,” Bregman said. “It was mostly just family time for us, but it was always a blast.
“My mom would cook latkes, and we still use her recipe to this day. She actually sent it to Reagan, and I think Reagan might make better latkes than my mom, but don’t tell her that.”
Bregman then shared his thoughts for more than an hour in a Q&A with Ari Alexander, a sports anchor on Houston’s KPRC TV news channel.
The program was put together by many in the congregation, including Beth Yeshurun President David Stein and Chair Lori Herzog.
“We pulled everything together in eight days,” Herzog said. “It was a Hanukkah miracle.”
Bregman shared his bar mitzvah speech from 2007, which focused on using his love of baseball to make a difference in the world.
“I hope I have been able to live up to a little bit of what that 13-year-old wanted the older version of me to be,” Bregman said. “He would probably say you still have a lot of work to do and keep going.”
At 28, Bregman, who was drafted by the Astros in the first round of the 2015 MLB draft, has already achieved more than most players: he is a two-time World Series champion and two-time All-Star.
During the Q&A, he answered questions submitted by audience members, including one about his favorite Hanukkah gift growing up.
“When I got a little bit older, it was baseball cards and a Mark McGwire baseball card. When I was younger it was definitely Legos.
“One year during Hanukkah our house was broken into and robbed. The only room they didn’t take anything from was mine because my Legos were spread out across the floor.”
Decades removed from the Legos, Bregman now is a national star and takes his opportunity as a Jewish role model seriously.
“In this position, you have a platform and you’re able to reach a lot of people,” Bregman said. “I want Jewish kids who dream about playing baseball to believe that they can play in the big leagues and live out their dream, too.”
Bregman noted he has not experienced any antisemitism in his baseball journey.
“Growing up, my mom and dad always told me to stand up for what you believe in and to speak up for it,” he said. “I want to stand up for what is right and stand up against hate.
“Personally, I think we all need a little more togetherness in the world and need to be kinder to one another.”
Alex Bregman stayed after the event to sign autographs, take pictures and meet hundreds of kids and adults at Beth Yeshurun. (Daniel Bissonnet/Houston Jewish Herald-Voice)
After the Q&A session, Stein presented the Astros star with several gifts from Beth Yeshurun, including an Astros kippah, a menorah, candles, gelt and an autographed baseball from Rabbis Brian Strauss, Steven Morgen and Sarah Fort.
Beth Yeshurun also had gifts for Knox, including a plush dreidel and a “Future Beth Yeshurun Day School Graduate” onesie. Also presented to Alex and Knox were lifetime memberships to Beth Yeshurun.
“Alex and his family truly set an example of living with Jewish values and serve as incredible role models for us all,” Stein told the JHV.
“We knew we would have a large crowd, and everyone that attended left our sanctuary with feelings of great happiness and pride.”
Beth Yeshurun also presented a $5,000 check to Bregman’s charity, Bregman Cares, which focuses on autism awareness, food insecurity and several other local causes.
“Alex fulfills the mitzvah of tzedakah and tikkun olam through his Bregman Cares foundation,” Stein said. “He is a shining star of not only the Houston community but the Jewish community, as well.”
Bregman threw out a curveball at the end of the evening, asking for the microphone and offering to take pictures with all the kids in attendance, which led to photos, autographs and plenty of high-fives.
“This was a really fun night,” Bregman said. “Hopefully, we can win a few more World Series and celebrate more Hanukkahs together.”
A version of this story originally appeared in the Jewish Herald-Voice, Houston. It is reprinted here with permission.
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The post Houston Astros star Alex Bregman celebrated Hanukkah at a local synagogue appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
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Two Men Jailed in UK for Islamic State-Inspired Plot to Kill Hundreds of Jews
Weapons seized from the home of Walid Saadaoui, 38, who along with Amar Hussein, 52, has been found guilty at Preston Crown Court of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community, in Britain, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on December 23, 2025. They are due to be sentenced on Friday. Photo: Greater Manchester Police/Handout via REUTERS
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.
Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.
They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.
Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”
Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”
POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL
Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.
He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.
Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.