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How a youth hockey league is accommodating Shabbat-observant players
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — Six hours of hockey games squeezed in between Saturday night and Sunday may seem like suboptimal scheduling, but for Alex Ottensoser, a forward on the North Jersey Avalanche 16U travel ice hockey team, it’s the main reason he signed up.
As a Sabbath-observant Jew, Ottensosser would have to miss many of the games on most other hockey teams, and that’s if a team would be willing to take a player who would miss Saturday games in the first place. That all changed when his mother’s friend mentioned the idea of forming a team for players who similarly observe Shabbat.
That idea came seven years ago, when several parents from New Jersey’s Bergen County approached the Avalanche, a competitive youth ice hockey program based out of Hackensack, New Jersey, about starting a Sabbath-observant team. Up to that point, Robert Rudman, one of those parents, says his son, now a junior in high school, would have had to miss at least one game every weekend because of his family’s Sabbath observance.
After some discussion with the Avalanche organization, Rudman says they offered to make a parallel team that was similarly competitive with the organization’s existing teams but also accommodate their religious practices.
Since then, the Avalanche have been attracting Sabbath observant players from the New York metropolitan area. “We’ve grown so much that this past year we had four teams made up of at least 15 players, so about 60-65 kids,” said Rudman. Now, “if you come to The Icehouse [in Hackensack] – which is where the Avalanche play their games – after Shabbat, you’re going to see four different age groups all playing.”
Rudman estimates that 95% of the players on these teams are Sabbath observant, although they have also attracted a small number of nonreligious players who simply want to keep their Saturdays free. The Avalanche teams are open to boys and girls, although the vast majority of current players are boys.
Jews who observe Shabbat have been accommodated in a wide array of fields. Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was the first observant Jew to hold a cabinet position. Former senator and vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman managed to make it work. And Ryan Turell, the former Yeshiva University star now playing in the NBA’s G League, hopes to become the first Orthodox player in the NBA.
Yet, for practical reasons, youth ice hockey has remained hard to access for Sabbath-observant Jews. Competitive youth ice hockey requires large time commitments from players and their families, including on weekends. Teams from the age of 6 and up typically have multiple weekly practices, and games Saturdays and Sundays, from September through March. Because of this intense schedule and competition for limited rink time, Saturday games are built into the culture of youth hockey, perhaps more than most other sports.
Sabbath-observant Avalanche teams have had their share of success on the ice, including winning state championships at the A and AA levels. (Courtesy of the Avalanche)
Jewish students in the New York metropolitan area have filled this void, compensating for their schools’ lack of ice rinks, with floor hockey. The yeshiva league currently stands at 15 teams and has developed into its own subculture, complete with local youth leagues and a summer camp. Still, the pull of ice hockey remains strong, and a small number of Jewish high schools now field ice hockey teams.
For Ottensoser, fitting in two weeknight practices and multiple weekend games with his Ramaz Upper School workload, and commuting from the city to practices and games, requires efficiency. “I find a way to do work in the car and make use of the time,” he said.
While hockey teams that accommodate Sabbath observant players may be uncommon, it’s not without precedent. The Avenue Road Hockey Association has fielded Toronto-area teams with similar accommodations, and the NY Icecats, a hockey program based out of rinks in New York and Hackensack, also fields teams “arranged to accommodate Sabbath observant families.” In addition, some Sabbath-observant players do manage to play on competitive teams without these accommodations, including on several teams in Long Island.
“[W]e are in an era where the schedule is much more fungible. It’s much easier to create specialized schedules for people,” said Judith Shulevitz, journalist and author of “The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.” “So I think it’s easier to accommodate schedules for particular means.”
That said, she also sees a broader appreciation for a day of rest, citing the players from non-observant backgrounds who have joined the Sabbath-observant Avalanche teams. In her view, kids are too driven and scheduled, with not enough down time. “As soon as you begin to grasp the importance of a day of rest, you will begin to grasp the idea of a day of rest with others and begin to structure your time in such a way that it becomes possible,” Shulevitz said. “That’s what they’ve done. They want the day of rest. They’ve joined a [Sabbath-observant team] so they’ve created a structure for themselves.That’s a social good in and of itself.”
Ultimately, while the Sabbath-observant Avalanche teams have had their share of success on the ice, including winning state championships at the competitive A and AA levels, Rudman says the goal is not to get players to the NHL. (The league currently features a small but historically strong group of Jewish players, including Edmonton Oiler Zach Hyman who wears the number 18 for chai, or life in Hebrew.)
“It’s so they can be kids and play the game they love, without having to sacrifice anything in terms of their religion,” he said.
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The post How a youth hockey league is accommodating Shabbat-observant players appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What we know about the car crash at Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters in Brooklyn
CROWN HEIGHTS — A driver crashed a car into an entrance of the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn on Wednesday night, damaging the building on a night thousands had gathered there to celebrate.
Video circulating online and verified by eyewitnesses shows a vehicle repeatedly driving into the building’s doors at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood, the main synagogue of the Chabad movement and one of the most recognized Jewish institutions in the world. One witness said the driver had yelled at bystanders to move out of the way before he drove down a ramp leading to the doors.
Police arrested the driver at the scene and the synagogue was evacuated as a precaution.
The incident occurred on a festive evening in the Chabad world — Yud Shevat, the day that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson took the movement’s reins in 1951. Chabad revelers from around the globe travel to Crown Heights each year to celebrate the occasion at farbrengens, or toasts, that are spread out in Chabad homes all over the neighborhood. The largest one is held at the movement’s iconic headquarters — Schneerson’s former home — with as many as 3,000 people in attendance.
Avrohom Pink, a 19-year-old Chabad yeshiva student, said the program at the headquarters had just concluded when the incident occurred.
He and a couple dozen others stood near the top of a ramp down to the pair of doors, a sedan turned into the driveway. Its driver, who Pink said was in his mid-twenties or early thirties with shoulder-length hair, yelled at people to get out of the way.
“He was trying to pull in, yelling at everyone to move out the way, interestingly — didn’t want to run people over, I guess,” Pink said. “Everyone moved out the way, and then he just drove down the ramp, rammed his car into those doors.”
While the car managed to push in the wooden doors, there was nobody in the anteroom they led to. The approximately 1,000 people Pink estimated were still in the building were behind another pair of doors on the other side of that room. Over the din of their celebration, they couldn’t hear what was going on, Pink said.
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesperson for the movement, said on X that the ramming “seems intentional, but the motivations are unclear.”
The incident is being investigated as a hate crime by the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
During the election campaign and since taking office, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has repeatedly said he is committed to protecting Jewish New Yorkers and ensuring security around synagogues and other houses of worship.
The attack follows a rash of antisemitic incidents across the city. On Tuesday, a rabbi was verbally harassed and assaulted in Forest Hills, Queens, and last week, a playground frequented by Orthodox families in the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn was graffitied with swastikas two days in a row. In both incidents, the suspects have been arrested. Antisemitic incidents accounted for 57% of reported hate crimes in 2025, according to the NYPD.
While the driver’s intent remained unclear, condemnation poured in from elected leaders.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin called it a “horrifying incident” and a “deeply concerning situation.” New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who has close ties to the community, posted on X, “These acts of violence against our Jewish communities, and any of our communities, need to stop. Now.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani arrived at the scene about two hours of the incident being reported and denounced the attack. “This is deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world,” Mamdani said in a statement, standing alongside Police Tisch, who is Jewish. ”Any threat to a Jewish institution or place of worship must be taken seriously.” The mayor added that “antisemitism has no place in our city” and expressed solidarity with the Crown Heights Jewish community,
During the election campaign and since taking office, Mamdani has repeatedly said he is committed to protecting Jewish New Yorkers and ensuring security around synagogues and other houses of worship.
The incident came during a rash of antisemitic incidents across the city. On Tuesday, a rabbi was verbally harassed and assaulted in Forest Hills, Queens, and last week, a playground frequented by Orthodox families in the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn was graffitied with swastikas two days in a row. In both incidents, the suspects have been arrested. Antisemitic incidents accounted for 57% of reported hate crimes in 2025, according to the NYPD.
The celebrations, which also mark the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe’s predecessor in 1950, continued at other locations in spite of the incident.
Pink described Yud Shevat as “Rosh Hashana for Chabad.”
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The post What we know about the car crash at Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters in Brooklyn appeared first on The Forward.
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France, Spain Signal Support to Blacklist Iran’s IRGC as EU Moves Closer Toward Terrorist Designation
Commanders and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The European Union could soon label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, after France and Spain signaled a shift in support amid mounting international outrage over the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests and shocking reports of widespread civilian deaths.
As two of the largest EU member states previously to oppose blacklisting the IRGC, France and Spain could tip the balance and pave the way for the designation, as the regime’s brutal suppression of dissent at home and support for terrorist operations abroad continues.
On Wednesday, a day before EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels to discuss the issue, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced that France will back the move to blacklist the IRGC, saying the repression of peaceful protesters must not go unanswered and praising their courage in the face of what he described as “blind violence.”
“France will support the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations,” he posted on X.
After reversing its long-standing opposition to the move, France also urged Iran to free detained protesters, halt executions, restore digital access, and permit the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged abuses.
Multiple media outlets also reported that the Spanish government is expected to back the EU’s move to blacklist the IRGC, aligning with France in breaking its previous opposition.
The United States, Canada, and Australia have already designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization, while Germany and the Netherlands have repeatedly called on the EU to do the same.
Some European countries, however, have been more cautious, fearing such a move could lead to a complete break in ties with Iran, which could impact negotiations to release citizens held in Iranian prisons.
The EU has already sanctioned the IRGC for human rights abuses but not terrorism.
Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization would not only extend existing EU sanctions, including asset freezes, funding bans, and travel restrictions on its members, but also activate additional legal, financial, and diplomatic measures that would severely limit its operations across Europe.
Earlier this week, Italy also reversed its earlier hesitation and signaled support for the measure after new reports exposed the scale of Iran’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests — a move that sparked diplomatic tensions, with the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoning the Italian ambassador.
According to local media, Iranian authorities warned of the “destructive consequences” of any labeling against the IRGC, calling upon Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to “correct his ill-considered approaches toward Iran.”
Tajani said the Iranian regime’s bloody crackdown on anti-government protests this month that reportedly killed thousands of people could not be ignored.
“The losses suffered by the civilian population during the protests require a clear response,” Tajani wrote on X. “I will propose, coordinating with other partners, the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards on the list of terrorist organizations, as well as individual sanctions against those responsible for these heinous acts.”
As international scrutiny over the regime grows, new estimates show that thousands have been killed by Iranian security forces during an unprecedented crackdown on nationwide protests earlier this month, far surpassing previous death tolls.
Two senior Iranian Ministry of Health officials told TIME that as many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone.
The Iranian regime has previously reported an official death toll of 3,117. But new evidence suggests the true number is far higher, raising fears among activists and world leaders of crimes against humanity.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which tracks deaths by name and location, has confirmed 5,858 deaths, including 214 security personnel. Nearly 20,000 potential deaths are still under investigation, and tens of thousands of additional Iranians have been arrested amid the crackdown.
Established after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the IRGC wields significant power in the country, controlling large sectors of the economy and armed forces, overseeing Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, and coordinating closely with the regime’s terrorist proxies in the region.
Unlike the regular armed forces, the IRGC is a parallel military body charged with protecting Iran’s authoritarian regime, ensuring its so-called Islamist revolution is protected within the country and can be exported abroad.
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Petition Calls for US Investigation Into Immigration Status of Daughter of Former Iranian President
Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, right, and his daughter, Leila Khatami. Photo: Screenshot
A petition circulating online that has garnered tens of thousands of signatures is calling on US authorities to investigate the immigration status of Leila Khatami, the daughter of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, arguing that relatives of senior figures tied to Iran’s ruling establishment should not benefit from life in the United States while Iranians at home face repression.
The petition, launched by an anonymous activist identifying as an “Iranian Patriot,” urges the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to review Khatami’s residency or visa status and to consider revocation and deportation if any legal grounds exist.
“This is not personal revenge. This is justice,” states the petition, which as of this writing has 84,919 verified signatures. “You cannot chant ‘Death to America’ through your political system while your own family enjoys safety, stability, and prosperity in America.”
Mohammad Khatami served as Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005 and has been described as a reformist figure within the Islamic Republic’s political system. Despite his reformist reputation, however, critics note that the Iranian state remained responsible for widespread human rights abuses at home and support for terrorist proxies abroad during his time in office.
Under Iran’s authoritarian, Islamist system, the Guardian Council, a 12-member body composed of clerics and jurists appointed either directly or indirectly by the supreme leader, bars any candidate from running for office not considered acceptable by the regime.
According to publicly available information cited in the petition, Leila Khatami, born in 1976, has pursued an academic career in the United States and has reportedly worked as a mathematics professor at Union College in New York. The petition argues that her presence in the US exemplifies a broader pattern of children of senior Iranian officials living in Western democracies while ordinary Iranians face repression at home.
Human rights activists have long documented abuses by the Islamic Republic, including the use of torture, suppression of protests, and severe restrictions on political freedoms.
Over the past few weeks, however, the Iranian regime has gone to unprecedented lengths to crush nationwide anti-government protests with a bloody crackdown. More than 30,000 people may have been killed by security forces earlier this month, according to new estimates that far exceed earlier death tolls.
Senior Iranian Ministry of Health officials told TIME that the scale of the killings and executions has overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead, saying that as many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone.
Aligned with the Ministry of Health’s new figures, Iran International reported that security forces killed over 36,500 Iranians during the Jan. 8–9 nationwide crackdown, marking the deadliest two-day massacre of protesters in modern history. The news outlet cited newly obtained classified documents, field reports, and accounts from medical staff, witnesses, and victims’ families.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which tracks deaths by name and location, has confirmed 5,858 deaths, including 214 security personnel. Nearly 20,000 potential deaths are still under investigation, and tens of thousands of additional Iranians have been arrested amid the crackdown.
The Iranian regime has reported an official death toll of 3,117.
The nationwide protests, which began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, initially reflected public anger over the soaring cost of living, a deepening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plummeting to record lows amid renewed economic sanctions, with annual inflation only getting worse.
However, the demonstrations quickly swelled into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and even a broader collapse of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
The online petition does not allege that Leila Khatami herself has committed crimes in the United States. Instead, it argues that allowing family members of senior Iranian political figures to live in the US undermines accountability and sends the wrong message amid ongoing tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The campaign reflects growing anger within segments of the Iranian diaspora, particularly after the latest protests in Iran were met with deadly force. Activists argue that pressure should extend beyond sanctions on Iranian officials to include scrutiny of their family members living abroad.
The petition also comes on the heels of Emory University terminating Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. The termination came after US Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) argued that her presence posed national security and patient trust concerns.
The US Department of the Treasury this month sanctioned her father for his role in coordinating the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on the protests throughout the country. According to the Treasury, Larijani publicly called on security forces to use force against demonstrators demanding basic rights, and his actions are tied to thousands of deaths and injuries.
The Algemeiner has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment for this story.