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Yeshiva University fans prepare to welcome back Ryan Turell for his first G League game in New York — right after Shabbat
(JTA) — Ryan Turell may be from Los Angeles, but when he returns to New York as a member of an NBA G League team on Feb. 4, the game will represent a homecoming of sorts.
Turell, the former Yeshiva University basketball star who in October became the first known Orthodox player to be drafted into the G League, is returning to New York for the first time this season, as his Motor City Cruise — the Detroit Pistons’ minor league affiliate — take on the Long Island Nets at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
The 6-foot-7 forward has drawn a growing crowd of Jewish fans in Detroit as an openly Orthodox player who wears a kippah on the court. But the Feb. 4 game will be the first opportunity for Y.U. fans to see their former star in action since he graduated.
“I don’t think people realize, there’s so many Y.U. fans that have watched Ryan play for four years at Y.U., and now they’re going to have a chance to see him in a G League uniform in New York,” said Simmy Cohen, a Y.U. superfan who works in marketing.
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. Saturday night, an hour after Shabbat will end. That wasn’t always the plan: Brad Turell, Ryan’s father, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the matchup was originally scheduled for 11 a.m. — which would present a challenge for those who do not travel on Shabbat. He and another observant fan both contacted the Nets about the conflict.
“We just told the Nets, hey, by the way, you have Ryan Turell, it’s his return to New York, a lot of Jews from Long Island and the surrounding area would love to attend, if you made the game after sundown,” Brad Turell said.
Within 24 hours, the game was moved to 7 p.m.
“They got it. They understood it, they didn’t question it, they didn’t say there’s red tape,” Brad Turell said.
Brad Turell, a communications executive at a Los Angeles talent agency, said he and his family have been to seven of Ryan’s games in Detroit, plus the three recent matchups in Los Angeles. He said he “wouldn’t miss” the game in New York.
Cohen, who grew up near the Nets arena on Long Island, also said he will be at the Feb. 4 game. He anticipates that quite a few of his fellow Y.U. Maccabees fans will be there, too.
“I’m predicting that it’s going to be really, really wild,” Cohen said. “And it’s interesting, because he’s playing for the road team. A lot of the fans coming to the game are going to be chanting for him, wearing blonde wigs or wearing his shirts, and screaming for one specific opposing player who’s on the bench more than he’s on the floor. And chanting ‘We want Ryan!’ I’m going to be leading that if no one else will.”
Brad Turell said his son’s return to New York could be “emotional and cathartic” for Y.U. fans — and that some singing may even break out in the stands, as is customary at Maccabees games. (Another aspect of the celebration: Feb. 4 is the day after Turell’s 24th birthday.)
The wigs Cohen referenced are just one way Turell fans have shown their support for the golden-haired prospect: There are Turell-branded shirts — including a special one for the Feb. 4 game that is no longer available — plus branded kippahs, sweatshirts and hats for sale on his website.
Special Ryan Turell shirts being made for the 2/4 game, in case you doubted how big that event is gonna be pic.twitter.com/X58U7TvJNx
— jewboy media (@simmy_cohen) January 23, 2023
Cohen, a self-described “extremely online fan of Jews in sports,” said he started following Turell a few years ago, during the Maccabees’ unlikely 50-game winning streak.
“I was really interested in their success and jumped on the bandwagon when they were winning a billion games in a row and having so much success and kind of taking DIII by surprise,” Cohen said. “And how the Jewish community was rallying behind them, I got into that.”
For Brad Turell, Jewish fans’ embrace of his son has been “the most satisfying aspect of this entire journey,” he said.
“They’re proud that this guy — who wears a yarmulke and proudly represents Yeshiva University and the Jewish people — is getting his shot, and that all the hype that surrounded Ryan in college, which was quite phenomenal, was real,” Brad Turell said. “He is good. The fact is, you can’t play in the G League unless you are really good.”
Ryan Turell wears a kippah when he plays. (Courtesy Motor City Cruise)
Ryan Turell told JTA at a November game in Detroit that he appreciates all of the Jewish fan support. “Jews love basketball. They really do,” he said. “The Jewish community is incredible, them coming out and cheering me on. It really means the world to me. And it’s special, because it’s bigger than basketball.”
Turell has appeared in 27 of the Cruise’s 30 games between the preseason Showcase Cup and regular season this year, playing off the bench. He’s averaging 14.3 minutes during the regular season (out of 48 in each game), with 4.2 points per game.
Turell’s best performance of the regular season was his first: he scored 21 points in less than 18 minutes on Dec. 27.
“He’s the perfect guy to have this happen to,” Cohen said. “He’s just such a mensch, on and off the court. Cheering on his teammates, helping people up when they fall down, things like that.”
But for Cohen, Turell’s appeal transcends his ability to sink three-pointers.
“He’s always talking about and thanking Hashem [God], and he’s talking about being a Jewish hero and a Jewish role model,” Cohen said.
For fans who can’t make it on Feb. 4, the Cruise will be back in Long Island in March — on Purim. Cohen pointed out that the timing of the game, 11 a.m., may be auspicious for those who observe the holiday.
“After you hear megillah and before you have your seudah [the festive Purim afternoon meal], what else are people doing in that in-between time on Purim?” Cohen said. “It could be something that kind of bridges the gap of the day.”
Brad Turell said the timing of the March 7 game is perfect — perhaps even divine.
“If you didn’t think Hashem was looking down upon this situation and helping this out, you look at that and say [Ryan] is going to be in Long Island at 11 a.m. on Purim day. How does that happen?” he said. “A day when all the kids are off school, where everyone’s in a great mood. This is a great family activity, and it’s an 11 a.m. game. It’s just fantastic.”
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The post Yeshiva University fans prepare to welcome back Ryan Turell for his first G League game in New York — right after Shabbat appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Poland’s Jewish museum director returns, 7 years after being pushed out by nationalist politics
(JTA) — The first director of Poland’s leading Jewish museum, squeezed out seven years ago by a nationalist government, is returning to the helm in a symbolic reversal.
Dariusz Stola steered the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw from its founding in 2014 to become a breakthrough in Poland’s recognition of its extinguished Jewish past.
But he clashed with the right-wing Law and Justice party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. The former culture minister accused him of “politicizing” the museum through explorations of antisemitism in Poland, and in 2019, he was pushed out despite winning a competition to extend his tenure.
Now, Stola has been reinstated by the new culture minister Marta Cienkowska, who was appointed in 2025 by centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk. His new term begins on March 1.
“In 2019, the then minister [Piotr] Gliński decided to ignore the results of the competition,” Cienkowska tweeted. “That appointment should have taken place six years ago. Dear Professor, good luck.”
Stola, a historian of Polish-Jewish relations and professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences, called his return to Polin “a victory of justice and rule of law.” When he was not reappointed in 2019, he chose to withdraw so that his deputy director Zygmunt Stępiński could take over. Stępiński will once again be his deputy.
“This confirms that the strategy we took in 2019 was right,” Stola said in an interview. “I lost only temporarily, and we have preserved the autonomy of the museum despite heavy political pressure.”
The Law and Justice government has made controlling Polish-Jewish history a core part of its platform, promising to revive Poland’s pride in its past and eradicate a so-called “pedagogy of shame.” That narrative stifled research on Polish antisemitism and Poles who killed Jews during and after the Holocaust.
Stola drew particular ire from party officials with a 2018 exhibit that documented Poland’s state-sponsored antisemitic campaign of 1968, which purged Jews from their workplaces and forced about 13,000 to emigrate. Former culture minister Piotr Glinski said afterwards that Stola imposed “very aggressive politics” on the museum.
In 2018, the country passed a law that outlawed accusing Poland or the Polish people of complicity in Nazi crimes. The infraction was later downgraded from a crime punishable with prison time to a civil offense, but critics say it had a chilling effect on historical research.
Stola’s reinstatement represents a gradual shift back to investigations of Polish-Jewish history, across cultural and academic institutions, that were dashed by the previous government. Only in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union fell, did Poland begin efforts to reconcile with the murder of 3 million Jews there and the intertwining of Jewish and Polish history.
Though a centrist coalition led by Tusk has governed Poland since 2023, Law and Justice clawed back a sweeping victory with the election of Karol Nawrocki as president last year. Nawrocki, a right-wing historian, has played a crucial role in the party’s efforts to rewrite Poland’s Holocaust history — making Stola’s reappointment a rebuke of the country’s largest political party by its governing coalition.
“The mission of the museum is even more important today, in the face of the dark forces distorting the memory of the Polish-Jewish past,” said Stola.
The post Poland’s Jewish museum director returns, 7 years after being pushed out by nationalist politics appeared first on The Forward.
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India’s Modi Visits Israel, Expresses Support for Jewish State as US-Iran Tensions Mount
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a welcome ceremony upon Modi’s arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit that both countries have cast as a chance to deepen relations, as regional concerns mount over the risk of military conflict between the United States and Iran.
In an address to the Israeli parliament, Modi told lawmakers that India stood with Israel “with full conviction” as he shared his nation’s condolences over the October 2023 Hamas attack.
“Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards,” he said.
Both Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also addressed the parliament, spoke of terrorist attacks that their nations had faced, with Netanyahu saying India and Israel both faced the challenge of confronting “radical Islam.”
Some opposition lawmakers briefly walked out of the special session, protesting at the speaker’s decision not to invite the head of the Supreme Court, but returned for Modi‘s remarks.
Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which the speaker belongs to, has had a confrontational relationship with the court.
Modi, a Hindu nationalist, became the first prime minister in India’s history to visit Israel in 2017, during which he and Netanyahu took a barefoot stroll on a beach in the northern port city of Haifa.
Both still in power nearly nine years later, the two leaders, who describe one another as friends, are expected to hold talks on artificial intelligence as well as defense at a time when Israel is seeking to increase its military exports.
An Israeli government official said Modi‘s visit would “pave the way for new partnerships and collaborations across many fields.” Bilateral ties were on the cusp of a significant upgrade, an Israeli foreign ministry official said.
US MILITARY BUILDUP NEAR IRAN
Modi is visiting as the United States deploys a vast naval force near Iran‘s coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic, with the two countries at an impasse in talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. The Pentagon has also deployed an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean, bound for Israel‘s coast.
A US attack on Iran could draw Iranian retaliation against Israel as well as US military facilities in Gulf Arab countries, where millions of Indians live and work and send home billions of dollars of remittances each year.
In his speech to lawmakers, Modi vaguely spoke about the challenges facing stability in the region, acknowledging that the landscape had become more challenging in recent years, but made no mention of the US military build-up, or of Iran.
He backed the US plan to end the war in Gaza, telling the parliament that it could lead to peace “for all people of the region, including by addressing the Palestinian issue.”
“The road to peace is not always easy. But India joins you and the world for dialogue, peace, and stability in this region,” Modi said.
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CIA Launches Fresh Social Media Push to Recruit Iranians as Trump Threatens Military Action
The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency is shown at the entrance of the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, US, Sept. 24, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The US Central Intelligence Agency has posted on social media new Farsi-language instructions for Iranians wishing to securely contact the spy service.
The CIA recruitment effort comes amid a massive buildup of US military forces in the Middle East that President Donald Trump could order to attack Iran if talks with the US set for Thursday fail to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump began laying out the case for a possible US operation in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, saying he would not allow the Islamic Republic, which he called the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, to have a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking a nuclear arsenal.
“They [Iran‘s leaders] want to start all over again, and are, at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions,” he said, accusing Iran of restarting its nuclear program, working to build missiles that “soon” would be capable of reaching the United States, and of being responsible for roadside bombings that have killed US service members and civilians.
“The [Iranian] regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate,” the Republican president said about 90 minutes into his annual address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives.
The CIA posted its Farsi-language message on Tuesday on its X, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube accounts.
The message is the latest in a series by the CIA aimed at enlisting sources in Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia.
The agency urged Iranians wishing to make contact to “take appropriate action” to protect themselves before doing so and avoid using work computers or their phones.
“Use a new, disposable device, if possible” and “be aware of your surroundings and who may be able to see your screen or activity,” continued the message, adding that those who make contact, provide their locations, names, job titles and “access to information or skills of interest to our agency.”
Those individuals, said the message, should use a trusted Virtual Private Network “not headquartered in Russia, Iran, or China,” or the Tor Network, which encrypts data and hides the user’s IP address.
The CIA declined to comment. Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet Iranian officials led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Geneva on Thursday for a new round of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump has threatened military action if the talks fail to reach an agreement, or if Tehran executes people arrested for participating in nationwide anti-government demonstrations in January.
Rights groups say thousands of people were killed in the government crackdown on the protests, the worst domestic unrest in Iran since the era of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.