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Jewish teen sinks putts and breaks down barriers on a Lutheran school’s golf team
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) — When the Long Island Lutheran Crusaders boys’ golf team begins their 2023 season against oher private, mostly Christian schools, they’ll boast a not-so-secret weapon: Boaz Exodus Ginzburg, the two-time Private School Athletic Association Champion.
Ginzburg is the lone Jewish player on the team, where he has formed bonds with his teammates and broken down barriers on the golf course and beyond. A student at Schechter School of Long Island, he is able to play for “LuHi” because his Jewish day school doesn’t field a golf team.
In a time with rising antisemitism, Ginzburg’s journey is especially resonant. Though he plays on a team with a mascot that may draw concerns for its historic connections to antisemitism and Islamophobia, he feels a bond with his teammates.
“The fact that we’re the LuHi Crusaders, which feels a little bit weird, and also I have to walk into their school and they’ve got crosses everywhere, which is fine, because they’re a Christian school, but it’s just a little awkward for me,” said Ginzburg.
He began his varsity golf career in Port Washington, playing for Schreiber High School’s team while still an 8th grader in 2019, before the 2020 season was canceled. Then, in 2021, he transferred to Schechter. He was able to join the Lutheran High School Crusaders, a golf team in the same conference as his school.
Prior to Ginzburg’s arrival, no player had completed an undefeated season as Ginzburg had, nor were any of the current players champions of their league. Ginzburg accomplished both of these feats during his 2021 and 2022 seasons.
But even that celebration was tinted with otherness. “When I won the championship, it’s these very Catholic kids and the winner is ‘Boaz Exodus Ginzburg,’ which is a little bit odd,” said Ginzburg.
Ginzburg is the lone Jewish player on the Long Island Lutheran team, where he has formed bonds with his teammates and broken down barriers on the golf course and beyond. (Courtesy of Jonathan Klemp)
Ginzburg was on track to lead Schreiber’s team as a freshman during the 2020 season, but the golf team had their season canceled due to COVID-19. At Solomon Schechter, he was able to join his two siblings and study in a fully in-person environment. Other elite athletes at Schechter have been able to play sports at other schools, for which Schechter does not field a team.
Despite being the lone Jewish player on the team, Ginzburg feels totally comfortable with his teammates, and doesn’t see his religion as a barrier between him and them. While Ginzburg isn’t as close with the other players as they are with each other, he still has been able to form friendships with his teammates, finding common interests outside of golf.
“After a month, I was truly integrated,” said Ginzburg. “There’s no barrier because of religion. I only see them three months out of every year for the golf season, but I still talk to them occasionally. One of them is a pretty big Mets fan, so he and I talk about the Mets sometimes.”
Ginzburg’s coach, Jonathan Klemp, watched as he became a true member of the team, and saw it as a testament to his character.
“Upon meeting Bo, it didn’t take me long to figure out that integrating him to the team would go well,” said Klemp. “However, even the most optimistic person wouldn’t have dreamed it would go as well as it did. Bo took it upon himself to get to know each player on the team — even the young, middle school golfers. Bo has been raised right and also naturally is just a caring kid. I also think that he was intentional about making the integration go well.”
LuHi’s number two golfer, Brandon Tapia, has been playing with Ginzburg since Ginzburg joined the team in 2021, and as the team’s top players, they spend a lot of time together.
“As soon as Bo first practiced with us, he was a part of us,” said Tapia. “Bo and I would always be paired as the 1 and 2 player during the matches and in practice too. I got to know him and he got to know me well too. As the years flew by, we’d still be paired in groups together on the course and always have a great time out there.”
Tapia also sees no religious barrier between the two. “We actually thought it was pretty cool to be a team that represented different religious backgrounds,” said Tapia.
Ginzburg and Tapia have learned about religion from the other, and about making friendships across boundaries.
“I asked them a couple of questions in the beginning, and if I get curious about something I’ll either shoot them a text or ask the next time I see them,” said Ginzburg. “I have a better idea of how the different sects are split than I did before.”
Yet the golf course is also a welcome escape from religion.
“They spend all their time at school learning about religion just like I do, so it’s not really the first thing we want to talk about outside of school,” said Ginzburg.
Having Ginzburg on the team, said Coach Klemp, “has affirmed to me that though we all have different backgrounds and beliefs, that we can do wonderful things uniting together for a common purpose. In our case, that purpose is to compete on the golf course in a game we love. I think we all can do well to focus on things we have in common as opposed to dwelling on things that could drive us apart.”
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The post Jewish teen sinks putts and breaks down barriers on a Lutheran school’s golf team appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES – Brazilians reelected Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva as president, defeating the center-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, putting the breaks on a regional shift toward closer ties with Israel.
The current president, a left-wing leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party), obtained 51.79% of the valid votes, while Bolsonaro received 48.21%.
Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, had pledged a close diplomatic partnership with Israel and cultivated ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Lula has become a critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Bolsonaro said he did not accept the election results, although it is not clear how he could challenge them.
In January 2024, Lula’s government endorsed South Africa’s decision to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. A month later, Lula compared Palestinian suffering in Gaza to Hitler’s murder of the Jews, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Israel. Brazil’s Jewish umbrella organization, CONIB, publicly condemned the comparison as a distortion that offended the memory of Holocaust victims and their descendants.
The remarks were also criticized by the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires. Sen. Bolsonaro promised a big shift toward Israel when he spoke on June 28, 2026, in Buenos Aires in a meeting with Jewish leaders. “In 2027, Brazil will not only once again have an ambassador to Israel, but will also take the step of moving its embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem,” he said.
That night he also lauded the 120,000 Jews in Brazil, saying, “They are men and women who rank among the brightest in Brazilian medicine, industry, science, culture and business.”
After Bolsonaro finished ahead of Lula in the first round on Oct. 4, Netanyahu sent a message the following day on X: “Congratulations @FlavioBolsonaro on yesterday’s vote and good luck in the final. I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil. Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”
Since 2023, several Latin American countries have strengthened ties with Israel, in some cases reversing policies adopted by their predecessors, among them:
Argentine President Javier Milei elected in 2023, who makes support for Israel central to his foreign policy and meets with families of hostages Hamas abducted in its deadly Oct. 7, 2023, raid on Israel, which launched the current war;
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, elected in 2025, who restored diplomatic relations with Israel severed by his predecessor;
President Nasry Asfura of Honduras, elected in 2025, who immediately formally recognized Israel’s new ambassador, a process his predecessor left in limbo;
Chilean President José Antonio Kast, elected in 2025, who is rebuilding ties with Israel diminished by his predecessor;
and Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, elected in May, who restored diplomatic ties with Israel severed by his predecessor, sent his foreign minister to inaugurate an embassy in Jerusalem and pulled out of the ICJ genocide case against Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lula’s reelection puts the brakes on Latin America’s pro-Israel shift appeared first on The Forward.
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In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump disparaged Jewish voters who support Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, at a rally in Port Huron on Sunday.
“Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump told some 4,000 supporters in the city north of Detroit, where he stumped for Republican nominee Mike Rogers. “You should never speak to them again.”
Hundreds of Michigan Jews have pledged to vote for El-Sayed, who polls indicate is narrowly leading Rogers in a race key to determining control of the Senate. Another subset of Jews has pressured El-Sayed, a staunch critic of Israel, to defend “Jewish safety — including for Zionist Jews” and “Jewish sovereignty in Israel.” Still others have urged their community members to reject El-Sayed outright and back Rogers.
El-Sayed opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, saying the country has committed genocide in Gaza and is “not an ally.” Those positions divided the Democratic party during his primary campaign against pro-Israel U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, whom he narrowly bested in August. A former public health official, El-Sayed has also emphasized affordability in healthcare, housing and education. He has made a concentrated push to reach undecided Jewish voters in the homestretch before the Nov. 3 midterm election, hiring a Jewish outreach director last week.
Trump has in the past accused Jews who vote for Democrats of being “disloyal to Jewish people” and “disloyal to Israel.”
He said at the Port Huron rally that he is “polling at 99% in Israel,” which will hold national elections on Tuesday.
Trump did not cite evidence for the claim, which is unsupported by publicly available surveys. While he has historically scored high popularity among Israelis, a poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute in June found the Israeli public’s trust in him was declining. The poll said that 12% of Israelis reported having a great deal of trust in Trump, down from 21% in May, while the share of Israelis with complete distrust in him rose from 32% to 37%.
Trump joined his comments about Jews and Israel to anti-Muslim rhetoric about El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim in the Senate if he is elected.
Trump baselessly called El-Sayed a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” who was “on the side of the terrorists,” adding that he would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”
He threatened that “if Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.”
Trump claimed that El-Sayed’s half sister, Eman Abdelhadi, celebrated the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. On the first anniversary of the attack, Abdelhadi posted a video that said, “no matter how great the brutality, the oppression, the intensity of what we’re going through, the horizon of justice is just around the corner,” according to The New York Times. She did not directly mention or celebrate the violence.
Trump also said that El-Sayed’s mother had “worked for an organization that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” A Times investigation reported that El-Sayed’s mother worked as a nurse in Missouri for a Muslim aid group that was later designated by the U.S. government as a supporter of terrorist groups. She was never accused of wrongdoing.
El-Sayed’s campaign has said that he “disagrees” with his sister on “a number of political positions and the rhetoric she’s chosen to use, including on foreign policy.” He was raised by his father and stepmother and has said that he had little relationship with his biological mother while growing up.
Former President Barack Obama campaigned with El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday, saying the candidate was “fighting for change, real change, that will get money out of politics and put money in your pocket.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In anti-Muslim speech, Trump says Jews who support El-Sayed should be ‘ashamed’ appeared first on The Forward.
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CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties
(JTA) — GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut said it would proceed with a planned fall trip for sixth graders at a Jewish camp in Massachusetts as planned this week, despite pressure from a Muslim advocacy organization over the camp’s Israeli symbols and Israel-related programming.
CAIR Connecticut, the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, objected to the trip, saying that programming at Eisner Camp in Great Barrington “incorporates connections to Israel,” the chapter’s board chair Farhan Memon wrote in a letter to Greenwich Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones dated Oct. 13.
The four-day Greenwich Schools field trip was organized by the Outdoor Classroom project, which works with seven locations in New England, including Eisner. Four of the camps are affiliated with Christian organizations, and two have no religious affiliation. With its clients, Outdoor Classroom coordinates nature-related learning programs for kids.
Memon wrote that some parents in Greenwich had viewed a video and photos of previous school events at Eisner and “identified Israeli flags and yellow ribbons prominently displayed in spaces used during school visits.”
“At the very least, spaces used by Greenwich students on any school trip should be free of national and political displays,” Memon wrote.
Eisner director Paul Isserles said in a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “We welcome Outdoor Classroom to use our camp facilities. Throughout the year many outside organizations rent our facilities for various programs. URJ Eisner Camp is proud to have an Israeli flag displayed for our camp programs.”
When it comes to visiting groups, “Frankly, we are not regularly asked to do anything to remove those symbols or to cover them,” said Union for Reform Judaism president Rabbi Rick Jacobs in a telephone interview with JTA. “Because to be honest, we wouldn’t.”
Answering Memon’s letter on Oct. 14, Jones wrote in an email that her school district “acknowledges that individuals and families have vastly different views regarding global events” and that it intends to “provide an inclusive and safe educational environment for all Greenwich Public School students, including when they are on field trips under our care.”
She added that she had “made it clear to a few families that we will not take a political or religious stand.” JTA has seen both the CAIR letter and the email response.
CAIR Connecticut did not respond to JTA’s query.
CAIR’s national website says the organization promotes interfaith dialogue and “condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.”
The Reform movement founded the 600-acre camp in 1958 as the Joseph Eisner Camp Institute for Living Judaism. It is located in the Berkshire Hills south of the town center of Great Barrington.
It is one of more than a dozen of the movement’s overnight camps in the North America. Many of those camps are rented throughout the year by groups that have nothing to do with Judaism, URJ’s Rabbi Jacobs said. “If a group rents the camp, they come up with their own agenda,” he said.
He added, “There are flags and other symbols of Judaism and of Israel in our camps, and we’re proud of that.”
Some parents had raised concerns about the venue as early as March. CAIR urged the district to stop using the camp in the Oct. 14 letter.
Removing decorations from the camp would not be enough, he said, noting that parents were upset after seeing promotional material about Eisner bringing Jewish campers to visit Israeli army bases under the Gadna, an Israeli military youth program.
A July 2019 post on Eisner Camp’s website says a group of participants in its Israel trip chose Gadna, stayed at an army base, practiced drills and learned to shoot at a target.
“URJ Eisner Camp participants who go to Israel have not participated in Gadna since 2023,” camp director Isserles said in a statement provided to JTA. “Our Israel programming at camp and in Israel is focused on Jewish identity, community, education, and connection to Israel.”
What CAIR is saying is that “A Jewish institution can be an unfit place for public-school children because it is visibly Jewish and identifies openly with Israel,” wrote blogger and Eisner alumnus Rabbi Jeff Salkin in his “Unfiltered” Substack on Oct. 19.
“A Jewish institution should not have to hide its Jewish identity to count as a fit place for other people’s children. You would not ask a church camp to remove a cross, or a Muslim camp to take down a crescent. A standard that demands such hiding makes Jewish identity itself the problem,” Salkin wrote.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post CAIR Connecticut urges Greenwich schools to stop using Eisner Camp over Israel ties appeared first on The Forward.
