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Jerry Izenberg covered 53 Super Bowls. His memoir covers his Jewish Newark upbringing.
(JTA) — Over the course of an illustrious 72-year career as a newspaper reporter, Jerry Izenberg has just about seen it all.
The longtime columnist for The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, Izenberg covered the first 53 Super Bowls. He’s been to 58 Kentucky Derbies, not to mention numerous Olympics, World Cups and boxing matches. He considered Muhammad Ali a close personal friend.
But the fiery 92-year-old, who still contributes to the paper as a columnist emeritus from his home in Nevada, doesn’t approve of the term “journalist.” He’s a newspaperman.
He dropped the name of Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century British diarist, as a contrast.
“Every day he took his big diary, and he wrote what he did this day, what he was planning to do later — that’s a journalist,” Izenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I’m not in my world. I’m in the world of other people trying to interpret and to repeat what values they have or what lack thereof they have.”
Izenberg’s latest story breaks that rule. His 17th book, which hits shelves on Monday, is a memoir about his Jewish upbringing in Newark. Titled “Baseball, Nazis, and Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing Up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark,” the memoir centers on Izenberg’s relationship with his father Harry, a World War I veteran and former minor league baseball player who passed on his love of the sport to his son.
Izenberg’s father emigrated to the United States as a child, leaving Lithuania with his family to escape anti-Jewish pogroms. As his sportswriter son recounts it, Harry discovered baseball even before he could speak English.
The Izenbergs’ love of baseball transcended all. When Jerry got his first baseball glove at ten years old, it was a milestone that in his father’s eyes surpassed even his bar mitzvah. (Maybe unsurprisingly, Izenberg would later skip bar mitzvah tutoring to play baseball after school.)
“He had given me a lifetime gift — a simple game and a simple shared love for it,” Izenberg writes in the memoir. “It remains there, bright and shining in memory eighty-three years later. In the soul of my memory, I see our kind of shared love of baseball again. It never fades.”
Jerry Izenberg and his father Harry shared a bond over baseball. (Book cover courtesy of The Sager Group, LLC; photograph courtesy of Jerry Izenberg)
The pair’s passion for baseball was closely intertwined with their Judaism. Growing up in Newark in the 1930s and 40s, Izenberg was a fan of the New York Giants baseball team (which left for San Francisco after the 1957 season). They featured a lineup filled with Jewish players: Harry Danning, Harry Feldman and Sid Gordon.
But in the pantheon of Jewish baseball during Izenberg’s childhood, there was a clear king, and — much to the chagrin of Izenberg’s father — he played in Detroit. Hank Greenberg, the greatest Jewish hitter in baseball history, was at the peak of his Tigers career from 1935-1940, winning two most valuable player awards on his way to the Hall of Fame.
At the Izenbergs’ dinner table, there were only a few select topics that were allowed to be discussed: baseball and the Nazis.
In 1938, Greenberg was chasing all-time great Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60 home runs, which Ruth had set in 1927 with the Yankees. Greenberg would ultimately reach 58 homers, falling just short of history, while drawing several walks in the season’s final games.
“My dad was convinced that was antisemitism,” Izenberg said. “And I said to him, later on when I got into the business and I knew people, ‘did it ever occur to you that the guys who pitched against him didn’t want to be the guy who threw his 60th home run ball? They’d be linked to him forever.’ My father said, ‘That’s an interesting theory, but you’re full of crap.’”
Of all the anecdotes Izenberg shares of his memories with his father, one non-sports related scene stands out. And it has to do with that second dinner table topic.
One Saturday in 1939, Izenberg and his father went to the Newsreel Theatre in Newark, where audiences gathered to watch news and sports highlights of the week. That day, the theater showed footage of the infamous Madison Square Garden rally held by the German-American Bund, the American Nazi organization.
Izenberg remembers leaving the theater with his father, who was visibly angry. His father talked about how the Nazis — or, as he called them, mamzers, Yiddish slang for “bastards” — had to be stopped.
“I’m an 8-year-old kid, and I say, ‘But dad, they’re in Germany,’” Izenberg recalled. “And he looks at me, he says, ‘They’re not in Germany, they’re here.’ And he was right.” Indeed, following Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi-sympathizers could be seen marching down Newark’s streets.
The move theater incident is illustrated on the book’s cover — and was followed by a frequent father-son ritual: getting hot dogs at the popular chain Nedick’s.
To Izenberg, the virulent antisemitism of his youth — including the Bund, the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan and the rise of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic “radio priest” — is a corollary for the current state of antisemitism, which is again on the rise in the United States, punctuated, he said, by the 2017 antisemitic white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, which he blames on former President Donald Trump.
Izenberg said he doesn’t believe any law can force people to love or even like one another, but that “you could legislate people and pressure people into keeping their damn mouth shut.”
He went on: “And for 30 years, we had that. We got relief from antisemitism… And then one day in Charlottesville, that son of a bitch gave them the license to say whatever they want. And that was a trigger that lit the flame of antisemitism, which then began to grow all at once. It was always in their minds. But it was not fashionable. They made it fashionable.”
Despite the anti-Jewish sentiment that was ever-present in his youth, Izenberg said he has not faced antisemitism in his journalism career. As a columnist who has covered just about every sport, Izenberg has received his fair share of criticism — most notably having his car windows smashed by two men who did not approve of Izenberg’s defense of Muhammad Ali, when at the height of his career the boxer stirred controversy with his support for the Nation of Islam and his refusal to enlist in the military.
Jerry Izenberg, right, and boxer Muhammad Ali were close personal friends. (The Private Collection of Jerry Izenberg)
Izenberg has written about social issues frequently throughout his career — especially race relations — a tendency that he said is inspired by the value of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world. It’s an idea he learned from Rabbi Joachim Prinz, the famous activist leader who spoke just before Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington.
After leaving Nazi Germany, Prinz settled in Newark, on the same block as the Izenbergs. He would become a close family friend, and even offered to help Izenberg prepare for his bar mitzvah, despite the fact that his family belonged to a different synagogue.
Izenberg said he is guided by tikkun olam, “because I know [Prinz would] want me to keep it in the back of my mind, and my father would, too.”
“I’ve always tried not to fix the world — I don’t overrate myself that much — but I could fix the little part of it, the space that I take up,” he added. “And my job was a pathway to that.”
Izenberg’s decades-long career in sports journalism has earned him numerous accolades, including induction into 17 different halls of fame, among them the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.
Along the way, he’s worked with and alongside a number of notable journalists, including ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap, who previously hosted “Classic Sports Reporters,” for which he invited veteran sportswriters like Izenberg on the show to discuss various topics from sports history.
“For someone like me who really treasures that art form, Jerry was one of its master practitioners, and he’s still doing it, which is amazing,” Schaap told JTA.
Schaap hailed the breadth of Izenberg’s career, which he said epitomized the kind of big-city sports columnist that has become increasingly rare in the digital age.
“He’s a maniac, there’s no other way to put it,” Schaap said with a laugh. “All those Super Bowls, all those fights… the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, all those things, in addition to the skills, makes him unique and has made him unique for decades.”
Schaap added that he and Izenberg shared a sort of unspoken bond over their Jewishness, and that Izenberg has taught Schaap a few Yiddishisms over the years. Izenberg’s tendency to slip Yiddish into his prose is evident in the memoir, from a comical retelling of his bris in the prologue to the frequent frustrated “genug” (“enough”) he heard from his mother as a child.
Ultimately, Izenberg said his parents represent the tachlis — the bottom line — of the memoir, and what he hopes readers take away from it. Izenberg said writing the memoir was cathartic for him, and that it even serves as a sort of love letter to his father.
“We were not, you know, ‘I love you dad,’” Izenberg said. “We were very respectful, but we didn’t express it. I tried to express it in this book. I hope I did.”
The release of Izenberg’s memoir is in no way a sign that the nonagenarian is slowing down. Even though he claims he works less than he used to, Izenberg said he plans to write six columns about next weekend’s Kentucky Derby.
He already has plans for his next few books, too — including a biography of New Jersey’s own Larry Doby, who was the second Black player in the MLB and first in the American League.
“I’ve had a great life, and I’m having a great life, but I ain’t done yet,” Izenberg said.
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The post Jerry Izenberg covered 53 Super Bowls. His memoir covers his Jewish Newark upbringing. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The BBC Used Mike Huckabee’s Interview to Attempt to Defame Israel
Mike Huckabee looks on as Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event at the Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, US, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
On February 22, the BBC News website published a report by Maia Davies titled “US ambassador’s Israel comments condemned by Arab and Muslim nations.”
The report is made up of three elements, the first of which is a presentation of what that headline calls the “US ambassador’s Israel comments.”
Davies begins by telling BBC audiences that: [emphasis added]
Arab and Muslim governments have condemned remarks made by the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel would be justified in taking over a vast stretch of the Middle East on Biblical grounds.
In an interview with conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson, Huckabee was asked whether Israel had a right to an area which the host said was, according to the Bible, “essentially the entire Middle East”.
The ambassador said “it would be fine if it took it all”. But he added Israel was not seeking to do so, rather it is “asking to at least take the land that they now occupy” and protect its people.
Davies later adds:
In the interview, released on Friday, Carlson pressed the ambassador on his interpretation of a Bible verse which the host claimed suggested Israel had a right to the land between the River Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
Huckabee said “it would be a big piece of land” but stressed that “I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today”.
He later added: “They’re not asking to go back to take all of that, but they are asking to at least take the land that they now occupy, they now live in, they now own legitimately, and it is a safe haven for them.”
He also said his earlier remark that Israel could take it “all” had been somewhat “hyperbolic”.
The relevant section of that “interview” can be found here.
BBC audiences were not informed that — as was noted by Lahav Harkov — Carlson put out an edited clip on social media.
The Tucker Carlson Network posted a clip of the video in which Carlson expostulated at length about Genesis 15:18, in which God tells Avram, “to your descendants I will give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river Euphrates.” The Biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judea never included all of the land promised in Genesis, even at its historically largest size.
Carlson asks if Huckabee believes that Israel was promised to the Jewish people and they therefore have the right to take all of the land promised, which covers modern-day Jordan and parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
In the clip, which cuts Huckabee off mid-sentence, he says in a facetious tone of voice, “It would be fine if they took it all.”
The second half of the ambassador’s sentence, as heard in the interview, is: “but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today.”
The second element to Davies’ report is the statement put out by various Arab countries and organizations, which she describes as follows:
Following the interview’s release, the UAE’s foreign ministry released the statement on behalf of various governments and other actors expressing “strong condemnation and profound concern” regarding the comments.
The statement said Huckabee had “indicated that it would be acceptable for Israel to exercise control over territories belonging to Arab states, including the occupied West Bank”.
It said the remarks violated international law and directly contradicted US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza, including efforts to create “a political horizon for a comprehensive settlement that ensures the Palestinian people have their own independent state”.
The statement continued: “The ministries reaffirmed that Israel has no sovereignty whatsoever over the Occupied Palestinian Territory or any other occupied Arab lands.”
“They reiterated their firm rejection of any attempts to annex the West Bank or separate it from the Gaza Strip, their strong opposition to the expansion of settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and their categorical rejection of any threat to the sovereignty of Arab states.”
The statement said it was signed by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria and the State of Palestine, as well as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Davies makes no effort to clarify to her readers that “the occupied West Bank” has never been included in “territories belonging to Arab states”; that it has never been “Palestinian” in the sense of belonging to a sovereign state; that it was part of the territory allocated to the creation of a Jewish homeland by the League of Nations; or that it was illegally occupied for 19 years by one of the signatories of the statement she promotes: Jordan.
Neither does she bother to point out that Huckabee’s responses to Carlson’s statements and questions concerning the principles underlying Christian Zionism have no bearing on the US “plan to end the war in Gaza.”
The third element of Davies’ report is the provision of supposed context, with readers told that:
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.
Notably, Davies avoids explaining why what she described two paragraphs earlier as “the State of Palestine” is now “a hoped-for future state” and, in line with usual BBC practice, she again avoids the issue of the Jordanian occupation of the areas the corporation chooses to call “the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” as well as the attacks on Israel by Jordan and other Arab countries in June 1967.
Davies continues with the BBC’s usual partial presentation of “international law” together with an interpretation of a non-binding ICJ advisory opinion: “The settlements are illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2024.”
Davies’ report closes with a new version of the BBC’s usual “frozen in time” portrayal of casualties resulting from the war that began as a result of the Hamas-led invasion of Israel — this time erasing Israeli casualties and hostages altogether:
Successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow. However, expansion has risen sharply since Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s deadly 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent military offensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
In addition to failing to provide readers with appropriate historical background, Davies refrained from properly explaining the context to the nine words that prompted the “condemnation” that is the topic of her report, including the fact that discussion of a Biblical passage has no contemporary relevance.
She also avoided providing information about other issues arising from that long conversation or the populist record of the person she describes as a “conservative US commentator.”
Obviously the prime aim of Davies’ reporting on this “much ado about nothing” story was to amplify the statement delegitimizing Israel that was put out by a collection of countries and organizations.
Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
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Prince Harry & Meghan Visit Jordan NGO Employing Staff Who Posted Pro-Hamas Content
Britain’s Prince Harry, Megan, Duchess of Sussex, and Lady Sarah Chatto attend the National Service of Thanksgiving held at St Paul’s Cathedral, during Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, in London, Britain, June 3, 2022. Photo: Victoria Jones/Pool via REUTERS.
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, arrived in Jordan this week on a surprise visit reportedly coordinated with World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The trip, announced under 24 hours in advance, included meetings in Amman with WHO representatives and participants from various humanitarian bodies, including the United Nations. The couple also visited the sprawling Za’atari Refugee Camp, home to tens of thousands of displaced Syrians.
But it was their final stop — a youth center operated by the Jordanian NGO Questscope — that raises serious questions.
The Questscope Connection
Questscope presents itself as a youth-focused humanitarian organization operating across Jordan.
However, a review of publicly available social media posts from several individuals identified as staff members reveals content that goes far beyond humanitarian advocacy.
HonestReporting has verified that the Facebook accounts in question belong to the individuals identified as Questscope staff.
Among the material shared:
- Images glorifying Hamas-affiliated militants
- Posts praising armed “resistance”
- Graphics celebrating rocket attacks launched from Gaza
- Repeated assertions that “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine”
- Imagery associated with organizations designated as terrorist groups by the United States and the United Kingdom
In one instance, a staff member shared an image of masked militants wearing Hamas headbands. In another, posts echoed messaging closely aligned with Hamas narratives during periods of escalation.
In October 2024, one staff member posted the phrase, “And in October, we came to have a deep-seated love.” The wording does not explicitly mention the October 7 massacre in Israel, yet in the current political climate — where October has become shorthand in some circles for the Hamas attack — the sentiment raises further concerns about the ideological framing at play.
Supporting Palestinian civilians is legitimate. Sharing content that glorifies Hamas is not.
Hamas is not a protest movement or a symbolic resistance brand. It is a US and UK-designated terrorist organization responsible for mass murder, hostage-taking, and the systematic targeting of civilians.
When individuals affiliated with a humanitarian NGO publicly amplify such material, the issue ceases to be political expression. It becomes extremist alignment.
A Humanitarian Visit – Or a Failure of Due Diligence?
Ahead of the trip, a source close to the Sussexes reportedly told British media that the visit was “not political” and should not be interpreted as taking sides.
That assertion now warrants scrutiny.
When global public figures publicly platform an organization whose staff have shared material aligned with a designated terrorist group, neutrality is no longer a shield. It becomes a question of vetting, and judgment.
Were Harry and Meghan aware of the social media histories of individuals connected to the NGO? Did their team conduct due diligence before lending royal prestige to the organization? If not, why not?
If they were aware, what message does that send?
Humanitarian engagement does not grant immunity from scrutiny. In a region where symbolism carries enormous weight and propaganda travels faster than fact, public association has consequences.
This is not about opposing aid. Humanitarian support for civilians is necessary and legitimate. It is about standards. When public figures who claim neutrality choose to elevate institutions whose staff have circulated material aligned with a terrorist organization, the burden of care rises — not falls.
At a time when antisemitism is surging globally and Hamas — a terrorist organization responsible for the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — continues to perpetrate violence, casual association is not neutral.
That tension becomes even more acute given Meghan’s longstanding public advocacy for women and girls. As patron of Smart Works, through initiatives supporting menstrual health in India, funding for Afghan women refugees, and projects focused on girls’ education and empowerment, she has positioned herself as a global champion of women’s rights and dignity.
Hamas’ October 7 atrocities included documented acts of sexual violence against women, as well as abuse of Israeli hostages in captivity. For a public figure whose brand is rooted in advancing women’s rights, even indirect association with messaging aligned with such an organization raises serious and unavoidable questions.
Advocacy cannot be selective. It cannot be unequivocal in some contexts and incurious in others.
If the Sussexes believe this visit was purely humanitarian, this revelation raises a number of questions: What vetting was conducted? What safeguards were in place? And what message do they believe this association sends?
Because humanitarian credibility depends not only on compassion — but on judgment.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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In Iran, a Revolution Against a Revolution
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 3, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Forty-seven years is but a fleeting moment in the life of an ancient civilization — but it is long enough for a revolution to confront its own reflection.
The fall of the Iranian monarchy in 1979 seemed to close a civilizational chapter, bringing to an end a form of rule long intertwined with Iran’s historical identity. Iran, one of the world’s longest continuous nation-states from antiquity to the modern era, had been governed by successive monarchies throughout its history.
Many dynasties and ruling houses held power in Iran for long stretches of history. They differed in their methods of governance and in their political codes, but they all shared a single unifying feature: the royal form of rule.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution marked the end of a longstanding historical period and established a republican regime in Iran. The revolution emerged from a range of social and political developments. These included rising Shia Islamist sentiment within parts of the population and expanding leftist political activism. Political liberty remained limited during this period. The outcome was the founding of a theocratic republic.
Since then, three generations have been raised under the ideological rhetoric of this regime. A government that seized power with promises of democracy and a fair life for all gradually extended its authority into nearly every aspect of citizens’ lives. Endless intrusions into personal matters and the imposition of a rigid social order have shaped daily existence, while economic and political crises have affected millions of Iranians.
Within the current governing structure, the suppression of Iranian national identity has become one of the defining characteristics of the theocratic system. In recent years, a visible shift has emerged among many young Iranians who openly express their rejection of this imposed lifestyle and signal a desire to move beyond the current authoritarian structure once and for all.
Amid deepening societal frustrations, numerous protests have erupted across the country over the past few years. Among them, the demonstrations following Mahsa Amini’s death and the protests of late December 2025 and early January 2026, now widely referred to as the Sun and Lion Revolution, stand out for their scale and intensity. These recent movements have been extensively energized by the participation of the country’s youth.
Signs of civil disobedience among young people are now widespread. Refusal to adhere to mandatory hijab regulations is increasingly visible in public spaces. Protesters invoke historical and epic figures from Iranian literature and traditions rather than the cultural ideals promoted by the regime. The revival of older national symbols reflects a broader attempt to reclaim an identity that many feel has been overshadowed.
At present, people of all ages, social classes, and professional backgrounds are involved in the uprising in different ways. This breadth of participation gives the Sun and Lion movement a popular mandate that many supporters regard as the foundation of a national revolution.
Some of the most frequently heard chants during the ongoing protests call for the return of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ruled Iran prior to the 1979 revolution. The Crown Prince has stepped forward in response to these calls and has expressed readiness to help guide a transitional process in a post-Islamic Republic era.
The massive protests of January 8 and 9, 2026, which extended across cities throughout the country, became a defining moment. Millions of Iranians gathered in the streets. At the time of this writing, students at a college campus in Iran have been championing Pahlavi and the Sun and Lion flag. This is an act that carries particular weight given that university environments have long been associated with left-oriented activism and revolutionary discourse.
This development represents a significant turning point in the progression of anti-regime protests. Academic spaces that once served as strongholds of leftist ideologies are now directly calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. The shift highlights how profoundly political sentiments have evolved within Iranian society.
Occupying a central role in this movement, Generation Z appears largely unmoved by ideological narratives or rigid dogma. Its members seek the restoration of national identity and the opportunity for a better life shaped by practical realities rather than doctrinal prescriptions. That impulse has become a guiding force across wider segments of society.
It is therefore unsurprising that many of those who lost their lives during the violent crackdown of January 8 and 9 were young protesters demanding fundamental rights. Despite the severity of the crackdown, the continuation of demonstrations more than forty days after those tragic events illustrates the persistence of public resolve. It is emblematic of a broader unwillingness among many Iranians to retreat from their demands.
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 abolished monarchy as a political order in Iran. Now, after 47 years, that same revolutionary system faces citizens who openly call for the return of the monarchical framework that was once overthrown. The historical irony is striking. Once again, history reminds us that political systems grounded in contradiction often struggle to sustain themselves indefinitely.
Perhaps that is why this moment stands as a pivotal juncture. Seen in a longer perspective, it resembles the completion of a cycle, a revolution against a revolution.
Ali Karamifard is a PhD student in Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His research and writing focus on political systems, institutional change, and contemporary developments in the Middle East.