They are the sleeping giant of American Jewish life. JCCs reach 800,000 homes with 1.7 million Jews — one-third of the entire U.S. Jewish community — surpassing even the burgeoning Reform movement’s membership rolls, according to a new report for the JCC Association of North America. Yet few Jews realize it. “JCCs need to be… More ▸
In a 1991 episode of NBC’s game show “To Tell the Truth,” a bearded Orthodox Jew named Arthur Shugarman had the show’s celebrity panel stumped: Was his job to help people get rid of their New York accents, or was he the nation’s only maker of rabbi trading cards? Back then, few had heard of… More ▸
Yael Kolett got goosebumps when elderly Uruguayan Jews at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Montevideo sang Hava Nagila with her, tapping the table with their spoons. Ashley Goldberg nearly cried when a thin girl held her hand at Ieladeinu, a Buenos Aires home for Jewish children at risk. Rachael Kansas remembered what she… More ▸
Anti-Semitic remarks during a basketball game between two prestigious New York City private schools are causing controversy. Several students at Trinity School chanted anti-Semitic slurs at a Jewish player from Dalton School during the Jan. 31 game, according to The New York Times. More ▸
A baseball pitcher and a former top-10 tennis player are among six people named to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Steve Stone, who won the Cy Young Award with the Baltimore Orioles in 1980, and Harold Solomon were recently named to the hall, which has its museum in Netanya, Israel. More ▸
A Jewish baseball player has the beginning and end dates of the Holocaust tattooed on his right leg. Gabe Kapler of the Boston Red Sox also has a Star of David on his left leg, according to the Boston Jewish Advocate. “I’d like to be recognized as a baseball payer first, but that’s out of… More ▸
Like millions of New Yorkers, David Vyorst grew up worshiping the Knicks. His basketball gods were named Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed. His temple was Madison Square Garden. When Vyorst’s father spoke reverently of Nat Holman, he “thought it was just some guy my dad was babbling… More ▸
A set of Jewish baseball cards is now available. Advertised as featuring cards of every Jewish major leaguer ever, the set include 130 players and cost $60. The cards are available from the American Jewish Historical Society, and more information can be found at www.ajhs.org. More ▸
A renewed vow from the Mormon Church to end the practice of posthumously baptizing Jews has drawn a mixed reaction. A Jewish official who met with church leaders this week believes the pledge is meaningful, but skeptics are focusing on the fact that the church made a similar vow seven years ago. Church elders made… More ▸
As a kid, Jane Leavy was an anomaly — a Jewish baseball fan who didn’t root for Sandy Koufax. Blame her grandmother, who lived around the corner from Yankee Stadium and bought Leavy her first baseball glove. “She was the woman who supported, with her grandmotherly tolerance, my infatuation with baseball,” Leavy says. In fact,… More ▸
