Uncategorized
NBA star Domantas Sabonis’ wife says he is converting to Judaism
(JTA via J. The Jewish News of Northern California) — When the Sacramento Kings face the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the NBA playoffs starting this weekend, they will be led by their Lithuanian-American — and soon-to-be-Jewish — center, Domantas Sabonis.
The 26-year-old All-Star is in the process of converting to Judaism, according to his Jewish wife, Shashana Sabonis (née Rosen). “We really haven’t talked about it [publicly],” she said in an interview this week. “He loves [Judaism] and really wants to be a part of it.”
Sabonis regularly studies on Zoom with Rabbi Erez Sherman of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Sherman, a Conservative rabbi who hosts the sports podcast “Rabbi on the Sidelines,” told J. that Sabonis is serious about learning more about Judaism.
“After [he had] a triple-double against the Houston Rockets, I get a text, like, ‘Hey can we find time to learn?’ I’m like, you’re for real,” Sherman said. “He’s always asking questions. He keeps kosher, and when he’s in Vilnius, he’s going to the kosher butchers to get chicken.”
While Sabonis is committed to his studies, his wife said, the demands of his job have made it impossible for him to commit to following all of the mitzvot. “He has to fly and he has to do those things, but he’s continuing his learning,” Shashana said. “We keep Passover, we keep Shabbat. We don’t drive, and we do Shabbat dinner every week.”
The couple were married by a Reform rabbi in August 2021. They have a year-old son named Tiger, and Shashana is pregnant with their second child.
They have a close relationship with Rabbi Mendy Cohen of Chabad of Sacramento, Shashana said. He put mezuzahs up at their house and recited the Megillah for them on Purim following the Kings game that night. Sabonis attended Chabad of Sacramento’s Purim party this year and signed autographs. In December, he sponsored a sufganiyot giveaway at a Kings home game.
Shashana, who grew up in Los Angeles and went to Jewish day schools, said her husband appreciates the support he has received from the Jewish community.
“People that follow me [on social media] see how we do the holidays and Shabbat, and I think it’s really fun for the Jewish community to see that representation in basketball,” she said.
There are two active Jewish players in the NBA and its developmental G League, Deni Avdija of the Washington Wizards and Ryan Turell of the Motor City Cruise. Former NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire stepped down last year as a Nets assistant coach after two seasons, citing conflicts with his religious observance. Stoudemire converted to Orthodox Judaism in 2020 after being raised in the Hebrew Israelite faith.
Sabonis, who is listed at 7-foot-1 and is the son of NBA Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis, had a breakout season in his second with the Kings, helping propel the team back to the playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons and ending the longest postseason drought in NBA history. He led the league in rebounds with 12.3 per game, while averaging 19.1 points per game, and he made his third All-Star team. He was drafted in 2016 and previously played for the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Shashana said her husband is busy preparing for the Warriors series, which begins April 15 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, and was unavailable for an interview.
How does she think the Kings will fare against the defending champion Warriors?
“[The Kings] are going to win in six games,” she predicted. “We’re a really great team, and everybody is really determined to win.”
—
The post NBA star Domantas Sabonis’ wife says he is converting to Judaism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
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.
Uncategorized
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.
Uncategorized
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.
