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The Jewish Sport Report: A deep dive into Jewish memory with Rocky Balboa
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Happy February, readers! This month brings us the Super Bowl, baseball’s Spring Training, and the NBA, NHL and NFL All-Star games.
This weekend, you can catch Jack Hughes (New Jersey Devils) and Adam Fox (New York Rangers) in the NHL All-Star Game on Saturday afternoon.
There are no Jewish players participating in the NFL Pro Bowl this weekend (a shanda), but you can always rewatch this amazing 61-yard field goal from Greg Joseph on Dec. 24.
Finally, you can still vote for Orthodox prospect Ryan Turell to appear in the G League Next Up game during NBA All-Star Weekend.
A deep dive into Jewish memory with Rocky Balboa
Paul Farber is the creator and host of a new podcast about the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia. (Gene Smirnov)
Rocky Balboa is a fictional character, and his statue in Philadelphia was first made as a movie prop. So why do millions of people from around the world visit the monument every year?
That’s the question monuments expert Paul Farber sets out to answer in his new NPR podcast “The Statue,” which explores the history and significance of the statue dedicated to “the most famous Philadelphian who never lived.”
Farber also learned some fascinating Jewish nuggets from the “Rocky” franchise. Not only is there the Jewish funeral scene in “Rocky III” — which he has thoughts about — but Rocky’s love interest Adrian was originally supposed to be Jewish.
I caught up with Farber this week to hear about how he got into the project — it started with a scolding from his mother, of course — and what Rocky, and sports fandom in general, can teach us about collective memory.
I found the conversation fascinating. Read it here.
Halftime report
A HOMA RUN. Golfer Max Homa won the Farmers Insurance Open last weekend, his first PGA Tour victory since becoming a father last year. Heralded for his humor and down-to-earth online persona, Homa is also helping the PGA step up its TV game, serving as a consultant of sorts. During the tournament last week, Homa conducted a live interview while playing.
THE JEWS OF FENWAY. Team Israel pitcher and veteran big leaguer Richard Bleier was traded to the Boston Red Sox this week. He is the second reliever, and second Team Israel member, that Boston baseball boss Chaim Bloom acquired in the past two weeks, joining Ryan Sherriff.
VROOM VROOM. Robert Schwartzman will begin the upcoming Formula One season as Ferrari’s reserve driver, just one step away from having his own seat in F1. The 23-year-old was born in Tel Aviv and spent the first three years of his life in Israel before moving to Russia and eventually Italy. He told Jewish Insider that he got his passion for racing from his father, who died in 2020.
KEEPING THE FAITH. The Forward talks to Ze’ev Remer, a point guard who plays basketball at California Lutheran University, about his experience as an Orthodox Jew at a Christian school. “If you just continue being stuck in an echo chamber, in Jewish day schools and with Jewish friends, you’re never gonna reach out and educate other people,” he said.
MENSCH ON THE BENCH. Journeyman catcher Ryan Lavarnway will head to Miami next month to play for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic. “Through this team, I kind of found my place in the community,” Lavarnway told sportswriter and baseball historian Gordon Edes. “The worldwide Jewish community embraced me, and I embraced it.”
HONORED, AGAIN. In 2021, Holy Cross basketball legend Sherry Levin had a mezuzah hung in her honor. Now the school has retired her jersey, too.
Meyers Leonard opens up about his antisemitic mistake
Meyers Leonard of the Miami Heat warms up before a game against the Washington Wizards in Washington, D.C., Jan. 9, 2021. (Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
In March 2021, Miami Heat player Meyers Leonard made a life-altering mistake: he used an antisemitic slur while livestreaming on the video game platform Twitch. Leonard would be suspended and fined, traded and ultimately released.
Leonard apologized at the time, and immediately began a journey of learning and engaging with the local Jewish community in South Florida — a process known in Jewish tradition as teshuva.
The 7-footer spoke to Jewish ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap, in an interview that was featured this week on the ESPN Daily podcast and the “Outside the Lines” program.
As he eyes a return to the NBA, Leonard is opening up about the incident and how the Jewish community welcomed him in and helped him begin to heal.
Jews in sports to watch this weekend
IN HOCKEY…
Jack Hughes and Adam Fox are both representing the Metropolitan Division in the NHL All-Star Game tomorrow. Their squad takes on the Atlantic All-Stars at 4 p.m. ET on ABC.
IN BASKETBALL…
Two Jewish players will take on the Nets tomorrow in New York. Deni Avdija and the Washington Wizards play the Brooklyn Nets at 6 p.m. ET, and former Yeshiva University star Ryan Turell will play his first game back in the Empire State at 7 p.m. ET when his Motor City Cruise take on the Long Island Nets. Y.U. fans plan to show up in full-force for Turell’s New York homecoming.
IN GOLF…
Jewish golfers David Lipsky and Ben Silverman are at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this weekend in California — a tournament that pairs pros with amateurs (including big-name celebrities). Silverman, who won the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic last week, will pair up with none other than Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Fool me twice…
Perhaps the biggest story in sports this week was the (second) retirement of legendary quarterback Tom Brady, who ends a 23-year career with seven Super Bowl rings. Reactions poured in from around the league, including from Jewish New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Brady’s former teammate Julian Edelman.
The timing is auspicious — the star-studded film “80 For Brady” hits theaters today. The movie has been panned already, but I’m not convinced Brady’s retirement isn’t just a marketing ploy. Oh well. I’ll still see it.
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The post The Jewish Sport Report: A deep dive into Jewish memory with Rocky Balboa appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.