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The Jewish Sport Report: All the Jewish players to watch in the 2023 Australian Open

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Happy Friday the 13th! 

Sports fans are among the most superstitious folks out there. Do you have a game day ritual, a lucky jersey, or some other inexplicable tradition that your team can’t win without? Let us know by replying to this email.

And if there’s any masked Jason we should be afraid of, it’s Pittsburgh Penguins left winger Jason Zucker, who is putting together his best season since he was traded to Pittsburgh three years ago.

A Jewish guide to the Australian Open

Diego Schwartzman shown during his match against Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic at the 2020 Australian Open, which Schwartzman won in straight sets, Jan. 24, 2020. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images)

The first major international sports tournament of the year is upon us, as tennis stars from around the world descend upon Melbourne for the Australian Open, which begins Monday.

Before we get into this year’s tournament, we remember Jewish tennis legend Dick Savitt, who died Jan. 6 at 95. Savitt won the 1951 Australian Open and Wimbledon Grand Slams, becoming the first Jewish player to win either tournament. May his memory be a blessing.

Now here are the Jewish stories to watch at the 2023 Grand Slam down under:

Madison Brengle

The 32-year-old Delaware native is ranked 62nd in women’s singles and looks to make it past the second round for the first time since 2016.

Taylor Fritz

Fritz does not identify as Jewish, but his maternal grandfather was Jewish, and his great-great-grandfather was David May, the German-Jewish immigrant who founded Macy’s. Fritz is the best player of this bunch, entering the Australian Open as the 8th seed on the men’s side, with a men’s singles world ranking of 9. Fritz made it to the fourth round last year.

Camila Giorgi

The Italian star, who has said her favorite book is “The Diary of Anne Frank,” is ranked 69th in women’s singles and reached the third round last year.

Aslan Karatsev

Karatsev was born in Russia, but moved to Israel at 3 years old and has said the country still feels like home. He’s currently ranked 52 in men’s singles, two years after reaching the semifinal in a Cinderella run in 2021.

Diego Schwartzman

Ranked 25th in men’s singles, Schwartzman got his start at his local Jewish sports club in Argentina. He made it to the second round in last year’s Australian Open.

Denis Shapovalov

Shapovalov, ranked 22nd in men’s singles, was born in Tel Aviv to a Ukrainian Jewish mom and Russian Orthodox Christian dad. He often wears a cross when he plays, but his mom considers him Jewish. He reached the quarterfinal last year.

* One last Jewish tennis note: Elina Svitolina, the Jewish Ukrainian athlete who had taken a break from playing due to the war in her home country — and the birth of her first child last fall — has announced that she will return to playing this year.

Halftime report

KEN-GRATULATIONS. Veteran baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal has been named a co-winner of the National Sports Media Association’s 2022 sportswriter of the year award. In addition to his TV work for Fox Sports, Rosenthal has written for The Athletic since 2017.

NEVER FORGET. A Jewish community center in Boca Raton, Florida, is currently featuring an exhibit with rare Holocaust sports memorabilia from Jewish historian Neil Keller. The collection includes more than 100 items from Keller’s personal collection, including an autographed family photo that belonged to Victor “Young Perez, a World Champion boxer who was killed during the Holocaust.

NOMINATED. High school basketball players Noam Mayouhas and Johny Dan, who play at the Los Angeles Jewish day school Valley Torah (Ryan Turell’s alma mater), were nominated for the 2023 McDonald’s All American West team for the annual high school all-star game.

Jews in sports to watch this weekend

IN FOOTBALL… 

The NFL playoffs begin this weekend with the Wild Card round, and two Jewish players remain: Jake Curhan of the Seattle Seahawks and Greg Joseph of the Minnesota Vikings. The Seahawks face the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday, while the Vikings host the New York Giants on Sunday. Both games are at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX.

IN BASKETBALL…

Deni Avdija and the Washington Wizards host the New York Knicks tonight at 7 p.m. ET. Ryan Turell and the Motor City Cruise play the Ontario Clippers Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

IN HOCKEY…

Jason Zucker and the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Winnipeg Jets tonight and the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday, both at 7 p.m. ET. (Mark Friedman was sent back down to the AHL this week.) On Sunday, each of the NHL’s three games feature a Jewish player: Adam Fox and the New York Rangers play Montreal, Quinn Hughes and the Vancouver Canucks face Carolina, and Jakob Chychrun and the Arizona Coyotes play the Jets.

IN TENNIS…

The Australian Open begins Monday. The daily match schedule is released the prior day, so check here on Sunday afternoon.

The Strug-gle is real

Has Carlos Correa surpassed Jewish gymnast Kerri Strug for the most famous ankle in sports?

One Twitter user posed the question this week after the star shortstop finalized his free-agent contract with the Minnesota Twins — after two $300+ million deals fell through over concerns about his ankle. Strug, of course, fought through a serious ankle injury to clinch the gold medal for the United States at the 1996 Olympics.


The post The Jewish Sport Report: All the Jewish players to watch in the 2023 Australian Open appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Ilhan Omar Poses for Photo With Swedish MP Wearing Garment Depicting Erasure of Israel

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a press conference with activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) has come under fire after being spotted posing for a photo with Malcolm Jallow, a virulently anti-Israel member of the Swedish parliament.

The picture, which was posted on Jallow’s Instagram page on Sunday, showed the controversial Swedish politician posing alongside Omar and anti-Israel political pundit Medhi Hasan. Jallow draped a stole around his shoulders depicting the complete erasure of the state of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state. 

“Spending these days with so many inspiring leaders from around the world — including two of the most inspiring and courageous voices of our time, Congresswoman @ilhanmn Omar and international journalist @mehdirhasan — has been like reigniting an inner flame. I feel recharged with energy, hope, and determination,” Jallow wrote on Instagram.

Jallow has an extensive history of attacking Israel and promoting antisemitic conspiracy tropes. For example, he has “liked” a comment on social media that accused Jewish organizations of participating in freemasonry, fueling a false conspiracy theory that claims a secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons is working to control the world.

The Gambian-born lawmaker also lambasted Sweden for its supposed complicitly in a “genocide” in Gaza and stated in another social media post that Europe “betrayed” the Palestinian enclave by “financing the bombs” and “legitimizing the apartheid & the occupation.” He further appeared to threaten Swedish civilians who support Israel, writing, “To every ordinary citizen who waved the flag of the oppressor & laughed while Gaza burned, We will not forget you. We know your names. We save your statements. We screenshot your posts.”

He also seemed to threaten legal action against Swedish citizens who publicly demonstrate support for Israel’s defensive military operations against Hanas.

“And one day, whether in courtrooms of law or the court of history, In this life or the hereafter, you will be held to account,” Jallow posted. “That is not a threat. That is a promise to the people of Gaza.”

“Why is the Swedish government complicit in Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinian people?” he added on Instagram.

Jallow has also criticized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for taking certain measures to combat antisemitism, arguing that such actions endanger the country’s Muslim population. 

“The Swedish Prime Minister’s statement that antisemitism holds a ‘special status’ and is worse than anti-Muslim propaganda is deeply problematic and dangerous. It not only diminishes the severity of hatred against Muslims but also normalizes the growing Islamophobia in Sweden,” Jallow wrote in an official statement last year.

“Ranking hate and prioritizing one group’s suffering over another is not only ignorant and offensive — it undermines our collective struggle against all forms of intolerance and discrimination,” he continued. 

Sweden has reported a notable increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, prompting alarm within both the Jewish community and governmental bodies.

According to a report released by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA) last year, hate crimes motivated by antisemitism in the country surged in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. The BRA found that police registered 110 complaints between the Hamas invasion and Dec. 31 in 2023, compared to just 24 incidents the prior year.

While Jews constitute a small fraction of Sweden’s population, they have represented a disproportionately high share of religious-hate-crime victims. In 2020, for example, antisemitic incidents made up about 27 percent of all religion-based hate crimes documented by police despite Jews making up only 0.1 percent of the population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

Omar for years has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress, calling on Washington to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state.

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Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder

Adolf Hitler had a sexual disorder that made it more likely for him to have a micro-penis, according to the first-ever analysis of his DNA. He also did not have the Jewish ancestors that some have claimed he had.

The analysis is being revealed in detail in “Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator,” a new documentary premiering Saturday night in the United Kingdom. The documentary looks at the researchers who decided to tackle the genetic makeup of one of history’s greatest villains, as well as what they learned — and cannot learn — from his DNA.

They found that he had Kallman syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by incomplete puberty, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday in the Times of London. They also found that he had genes making him more likely to have autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though they cautioned that the DNA alone is not sufficient to deliver a diagnosis.

Among those quoted in the documentary is the prominent British Jewish psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (father of actor Sacha). “Behavior is never 100% genetic,” he said in the Times report. “Associating Hitler’s extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses risks stigmatizing them, especially when the vast majority of people with these diagnoses are neither violent nor cruel, and many are the opposite.”

The analysis, conducted by a team led by a prominent British geneticist, is more definitive on the subject of Hitler’s possible Jewish ancestry. Rumors about such a background were prevalent during Hitler’s rise: In one notable example, a newspaper aligned with the Austrian chancellor who the following year would be assassinated by Nazis in 1933 challenged German authorities to disprove his Jewish ties.

And the rumors have endured: In 2022, Russia’s foreign minister repeated the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry to rebuff criticism that Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine, that it needed to be “denazified,” was undermined by the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish.

But while previous analyses of the DNA of Hitler’s relatives suggested that he may have had some genetic links to groups that he sought to destroy, including Jews, the new analysis, on Hitler’s own DNA, shows only Austrian German ancestry.

The analysis is based on a swatch of fabric stained with blood that a U.S. soldier cut from the couch upon which Hitler shot himself. The researchers were able to confirm without a doubt that the blood came from Hitler by comparing the DNA found in it to DNA previously confirmed to have come from one of his relatives.


The post Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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German Authorities Arrest Another Suspected Hamas Operative Amid Growing Terror Threat to Jews in Europe

Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski

As concern mounts over a potential surge in Hamas-linked attacks in Europe, German authorities have arrested another suspected member of the Palestinian terrorist group accused of acquiring firearms and ammunition to target Jewish communities.

On Tuesday, local police arrested Lebanese-born Borhan El-K, a suspected Hamas operative, after he crossed into Germany from the Czech Republic — part of an ongoing probe into the Islamist group’s network and operations across the continent.

The German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the suspect obtained an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols, and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in the country before handing the weapons to Wael FM, another suspected member of the terrorist group, in Berlin.

Local law enforcement arrested Lebanese-born Wael FM last month, along with two other German citizens, Adeb Al G and Ahmad I.

Prosecutors believe the three men acted as foreign operatives for Hamas and procured firearms and ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany.

Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.

Earlier this month, Mohammed A, another alleged member of the Palestinian terrorist group, was arrested in London at the request of German police. He is accused of taking five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G before moving them to Vienna for storage.

Last week, Vienna authorities uncovered a hidden arsenal linked to Hamas, reportedly intended for “potential terrorist attacks in Europe” targeting Jewish communities.

The Austrian government confirmed that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) has been conducting an internationally coordinated investigation into a global terrorist network with ties to the Islamist group.

During the investigation, Austrian authorities uncovered evidence suggesting that this group had brought weapons into the country for potential terrorist attacks in Europe.

For its part, Hamas issued a statement denying any connection to the criminal network, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”

However, experts have warned that Hamas has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.

Last month, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a study detailing how Hamas leaders in Lebanon have been directing operatives to establish “foreign operator” cells across Europe, collaborating with organized crime networks to acquire weapons and target Jewish communities abroad.

In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.

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