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Nelson Cruz and other Hispanic MLB players visit Israel to promote Christian-Jewish relations
TEL AVIV (JTA) — On a recent Monday, the owner of a restaurant here captivated a group of 14 lunch patrons with stories of her life before and after moving to Israel from Ethiopia as a youngster. A family visiting from New York approached from another table, and the adult son asked if he could pose for pictures with some of the members of the big group.
After the group had left to walk to the shore nearby, the restaurant’s owner learned that she had just hosted a group of professional athletes and their entourage. She briefly considered running after them for a photo herself.
“I wish I’d known who they were,” she said.
The athletes — Nelson Cruz, Cesar Hernandez and Jeimer Candelario, all Major League Baseball players in the United States — were surprised by what they learned at lunch, too. For instance, they had not known of the existence of Black Jews, including the thousands of Ethiopians living in Israel.
The players and their significant others were brought to Israel for a week by the Philos Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that promotes Christian relations with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. It was the organization’s first delegation to Israel involving Hispanic athletes, said Jesse Rojo, the Philos Project’s director of Hispanic affairs. The group toured Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Galilee and ran a baseball clinic for Jewish and non-Jewish youth in Raanana.
The visit also aimed to “proactively” combat antisemitism, Rojo said, “to show our baseball players that they can make a difference, not wait for someone to come out with an antisemitic tweet to do something.” The trip was organized well in advance of the recent antisemitism controversies involving American celebrities such as rapper Kanye West and NBA star Kyrie Irving.
But the players also expressed eagerness to learn about Israel and to impart their experiences upon returning to their homelands of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela — and to MLB clubhouses.
Cruz, from the Dominican Republic, is 39th on the MLB’s all-time home run list with 459. He hit only 10 homers this year and is 42 years old, but he said he’s hopeful a team will sign him to a contract for 2023. Hernandez, a second baseman who is also now a free agent, hails from Venezuela and is a former Gold Glove winner, earned for being named the best defender at his position in the American League. Candelario, born in New York but raised in the Dominican Republic, is also looking for a new team after playing six seasons at third base for the Detroit Tigers. Cruz and Hernandez played together on the Washington Nationals this past season.
On a minibus, before it set out for a day of touring, Cruz led a prayer of gratitude as everyone along for the ride bowed their heads. Members of the group uttered “amen” responses throughout. In Jaffa, Candelario expressed excitement at learning that the Bible’s Jonah had departed by ship from the ancient city’s port before being swallowed by a huge fish. At lunch, Candelario led the table in grace.
In separate interviews, each of the three visiting players said he had never heard anti-Jewish or anti-Israel views expressed by relatives, friends or acquaintances. Most of their compatriots, they said, think that Israel is constantly under enemy attack, a view they added was dispelled by their experience traveling around the country and feeling safe.
All attributed pro-Israel inclinations to their strong Christian beliefs, including regularly attending church services. They cited their mothers as devout women who raised them with Bible stories.
“We love God and the word of God. This is the land of our fathers,” said Candelario. “Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed,” he said, paraphrasing God’s promise to Abraham.
Rojo is organizing a charity softball game in the Dominican Republic between Dominican and Jewish-American MLB players in the coastal town of Susua — which was founded by refugees of Nazism who established still-operating dairy and sliced-meat factories. Funds raised through the event will pay to renovate both a baseball field and the town’s synagogue and to commemorate the Jewish immigrants’ roles in Susua’s history, Rojo said.
Cruz is trying to recruit fellow Dominican players to come on subsequent Israel trips and to play in next year’s Susua event. Superstar outfielder Juan Soto, Cruz’s former teammate on the Washington Nationals, considered participating in the recent delegation, but he reversed course after being traded mid-season to San Diego, Cruz said. Cruz also hopes to persuade the retired legends Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez to come to Israel, too.
Back home, “we’ll share this experience, and definitely more players will be motivated to come,” Cruz said.
“Anyone who’s an opinion-maker from such countries helps us,” said Jonathan Peled, the Israeli foreign ministry’s deputy director general for Latin America. “They become ambassadors of good [will]. Whether a pastor, an athlete, a performer, a YouTuber – on every visit to Israel, there’s nothing like firsthand observation to see Israel in a more balanced, positive manner and less distorted.”
Jeimer Candelario, a third baseman for the Detroit Tigers, interacts with children at the Raanana field. (Nico Andre’ Duran)
Israel enjoys good relations throughout Latin America, with Venezuela an exception after it broke off diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in 2009, Peled said. “But we hope that [ties] will be renewed soon,” he said.
Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Israel, coincidentally, will be competing (along with Puerto Rico and Nicaragua) in the same group at the upcoming World Baseball Classic, to be held in Miami in March. The teams will feature large contingents of major leaguers, with Israel’s roster consisting mainly of American Jews.
Baseball is not a top sport in Israel, but Team Israel’s periodic success on the world stage has helped promote the game. The Raanana site — dedicated in memory of Massachusetts native Ezra Schwartz, who was killed in a 2019 terrorist attack in Israel — is one of only a handful of baseball fields in the country. Other notable ones are at Kibbutz Gezer, in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, and at the Baptist Village complex in Petach Tikvah.
At the group lunch, Hernandez said that he “would live here” in Israel in the off-season if he could obtain a visa. He was asked whether he meant it.
“Yeah, because it’s the Jesus country,” Hernandez said. “I asked my wife, and she said yes.”
Sitting beside him at the restaurant, Gabriela Hernandez nodded.
“Yes,” she said, “because of the significance it has for us.”
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The post Nelson Cruz and other Hispanic MLB players visit Israel to promote Christian-Jewish relations appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Invites Israel’s Netanyahu to White House, Prime Minister’s Office Says
US President Donald Trump talks with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, Oct. 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. Photo: Evan Vucci/Pool via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump has invited Israel‘s Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in the “near future,” the prime minister’s office said on Monday, shortly after Trump said Israel should maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria.
A visit to the White House would mark the Israeli prime minister’s fifth since Trump returned to office in January. The two leaders have publicly projected a close relationship, though US and Israeli sources have said Trump has at times expressed frustration with Netanyahu.
The prime minister’s office said Netanyahu and Trump discussed disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza. Trump in September announced a plan to end the Gaza war and a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place since October.
TRUMP PUSHES ISRAEL-SYRIA DIALOGUE
Trump earlier said in a statement that it was very important that Israel maintained a “strong and true dialogue” with neighboring Syria, and that “nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous state.”
“Syria and Israel will have a long and prosperous relationship together,” said Trump, whose administration is trying to broker a non-aggression pact between the two states.
Syria does not formally recognize Israel, which following the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state.
The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria and later annexes by Israel, was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Trump has backed Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, while Israel voiced hostility over his past links to Islamist militancy and has lobbied Washington to keep Syria weak.
An Israeli raid in southern Syria on Friday killed 13 Syrians, Syrian state media reported. The Israeli military said it had targeted a Lebanese Islamist terror group there.
The call with Trump also came a day after Netanyahu asked Israel‘s president for a pardon in his long-running corruption trial. Trump has publicly voiced support for pardoning Netanyahu and sent a letter last month urging President Isaac Herzog to consider it.
The prime minister’s readout of the call made no mention of the pardon. Israeli opposition politicians have come out against the request and called on Netanyahu to instead resign.
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Iran’s Water Crisis Deepens as Experts Say Extreme Drought Is Worst in At Least 40 Years
People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran’s water crisis has continued to deteriorate, with the country experiencing a severe drought which has prompted calls to evacuate the capital of Tehran, whose metropolitan area is home to approximately 15 million people.
From Sept. 23 to Nov. 28, Iran averaged 3.9 millimeters of rain, a staggering drop of 88.3 percent compared to the longterm average of 33.5 millimeters, according to Iran’s meteorology authorities.
“Nature is now imposing hard limits,” Amir AghaKouchak, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN. “For decades, policies have encouraged the expansion of irrigated agriculture in arid regions,” he explained, echoing others who have identified many years of economic, agricultural, and policy decisions which have drained the desert nation’s aquifers.
AghaKouchak described the current drought as the worst for at least 40 years.
Iran’s state-run ISNA news site reported that the country had not seen rain in November’s last week and that the four provinces experiencing the worst conditions were Bushehr, South Khorasan, Qom, and Yazd. ISNA also named Tehran Province as a region with low rain, citing a 97.4 percent drop. Factors named as impacting the drought included drying wetlands, decreases in humidity, fewer clouds, failure to update infrastructure, expansion of agriculture into dry regions, growth in the oil industry, building too many dams, and “intensified land subsidence.”
Iran has reached a state of “water bankruptcy,” according to Kaveh Madani, who served as deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment. He is currently director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health.
Mohsen Mesgaran, an associate professor of plant sciences at the University of California, Davis, told CNN that “an estimated 30 percent of treated drinking water is lost through old, leaky distribution systems, and there’s very little water recycling.”
Ali Bitollahi, head of the Earthquake Engineering and Risk Department at the Road, Housing, and Urban Development Research Center, labeled the drought “very serious” and called it the “driest autumn in the country.”
Reuters reported that 10 percent of the dams in the country had run dry.
Mohsen Ardakani, the director general of the Tehran Provincial Water and Sanitation Authority, said last month that the main reservoirs supplying the capital city were at 11 percent capacity, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency.
The Latyan Dam outside Tehran is reportedly around 9 percent full, while the Amir Kabir Dam is around 8 percent of its capacity.
Mashhad, Iran’s second largest metropolitan area with 3 million people, had reached 3 percent of its water capacity, according to Hossein Esmailian, head of the city’s water and wastewater utility company.
The Mehr News Agency reported that wheat production in the country dropped 30 percent due to the previous year’s drought.
The government has explored using cloud seeding to provoke rain but has seen limited results.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has stated that water rationing will begin this month if rain does not return. On Nov. 6, he said that “even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all. They [citizens] have to evacuate Tehran.”
About two weeks later, Pezeshkian said that the country “has no choice” but to relocate its capital, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain.
“The truth is, we have no choice left — relocating the capital is now a necessity,” he said during a televised national address, asserting that the deepening crisis has “rendered the city uninhabitable.”
However, Mesgaran noted that “most households simply can’t afford such a move,” asking, “Where would people even go?”
Amid the water crisis, the Iranian regime has spent significant resources on bolstering its military and nuclear programs, spending an estimated billions of dollars on support for its terrorist proxies abroad.
According to the US Treasury Department, for example, Iran has provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah so far this year alone, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the Lebanese terrorist group.
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Northwestern University Agrees to $75 Million Settlement With Trump Admin Over Antisemitism Complaints
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, US, April 9, 2025. Photo: Vincent Alban via Reuters Connect.
Northwestern University has agreed to pay $75 million and abolish a controversial agreement it reached with a pro-Hamas student group in exchange for the US federal government’s releasing $790 million in grants it impounded in April over accusations of antisemitism and reverse discrimination.
“Today’s settlement marks another victory in the Trump administration’s fight to ensure that American educational institutions protect Jewish students and put merit first,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Friday. “Institutions that accept federal funds are obligated to follow civil rights law — we are grateful to Northwestern for negotiating this historic deal.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Northwestern struggled to correct an impression that it had coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May 2024 encampment, in which they illegally occupied the Deering Meadow section of campus.
Part of the deal, infamously known as the “Deering Meadow Agreement,” to end the encampment stipulated establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, creating a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by students of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim descent, and forming a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
“As part of this agreement with the federal government, the university has terminated the Deering Meadow Agreement and will reverse all policies that have been implemented or are being implemented in adherence to it,” the university said in a statement, noting that it also halted plans for the segregated dormitory. “The university remains committed to fostering inclusive spaces and will continue to support student belonging and engagement through existing campus facilities and organizations, while partnering with alumni to explore off-campus, privately owned locations that could further support community connection and programming.”
On Friday, the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern (CAAN), whose activism contributed to the federal government’s sanctioning the university, said it “welcomes the fact that the Resolution Agreement nullifies the discriminatory Deering Meadow Agreement, a document that represented one of the lowest points in Northwestern’s history.”
It added, “That agreement granted preferential treatment based on national origin, empowered groups involved in harassment, bypassed required governance safeguards, and signaled an institutional surrender rather than leadership. Its elimination is an essential step toward reinstating civil rights compliance and restoring the university’s credibility.”
Northwestern previously touted its progress on addressing the campus antisemitism crisis in April, saying that it had addressed alleged failures highlighted by lawmakers and Jewish civil rights activists.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the statement said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and around the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which regulate peaceful assembly on the campus.
“Over the past two years, Northwestern has implemented numerous measures to strengthen our campus environment: new training requirements, expanded reporting systems and greater support for Jewish students. All of those measures predated this agreement,” the university said on Friday. “Incidents have significantly declined as a result. As part of the agreement, we will continue strengthening those measures, including a new campus climate survey for Jewish students.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.