The Interior Ministry has stripped American-born basketball star John Lee Irving of the Herut-sponsored Betar Tel Aviv Basket ball team of his Israeli citizenship, saying Irving presented forged documents when applying for citizenship.
Irving had been signed to play for the Israeli team while in the United States by officials of the National Religious Party-backed Elitzur Sports Club, and had transferred to the Betar Club some time ago. The officials said that Irving presented papers to show that he had undergone official conversion to Judaism, which afforded him with automatic citizenship.
The Black basketball palyer acknowledged that he did not go through any conversion ceremony, saying he did not need to as his grandmother had been Jewish. He said he did not know the document he had been given to accompany his citizenship request was forged. Irving played basketball in the U.S. at Hofstra University in New York.
Maariv reported yesterday that the U.S. branch of Interpol, the international police organization, had been asked to investigate and had discovered that the conversion certificate had been forged. The U.S. rabbi whose name appeared on the document claims that his signature had been forged, the newspaper reported.
According to Israel Basketball Association regulations, league teams may not engage more than one or two non-citizens, so foreign applicants for team membership must first take out citizenship — a process which is automatic for Jews but can take years for non-Jews.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
