BALTIMORE (JTA) – Last September, first baseman Nate Freiman was doing his best to help Israel secure a spot in the World Baseball Classic. Despite some super hitting from the towering slugger, the team fell short. Fast forward a year. Freiman, 25, now finds himself in another playoff chase.… Read more »
Sports
Israel’s Maccabiah Games warm hearts of Tucson hall-of-famers, competitors
Israel hosted the world’s largest sporting event of the year this summer, the 19th Maccabiah Games, held July 17-30. Three Tucsonans participated as athletes in the Olympic-style games, which included Jewish athletes from 70 countries, while one current and one former Tucsonan were inducted into the International Jewish… Read more »
Fun and a few medals for Tucson teens at JCC Maccabi Games in Austin
Thirteen teen basketball players from Tucson — 10 boys and three girls —participated in the JCC Maccabi Games in Austin, Texas, July 28-Aug. 2. The annual games for Jewish teens ages 13 to 16 are like a mini-Olympics, but with the emphasis on camaraderie and enhancing Jewish identity more… Read more »
Nearly killed in 2010 accident, a triumphant Dave Blackburn returns to Maccabiah
RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — Dave Blackburn beamed triumphantly, surrounded by a crowd of American athletes and cheering spectators. It was like old times, the great pitcher basking in applause. But Blackburn wasn’t being ushered off the field with a championship trophy in hand as he was after leading… Read more »
Olympic gold medalist leads U.S. delegation at Maccabiah opening
When swimmer Garrett Weber-Gale heard his name announced last Wednesday as the U.S. flag bearer for the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games, he just about lost his breath. A two-time gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Weber-Gale had spoken with JTA earlier this week about the… Read more »
Coach Jacques Demers hoping to add Maccabiah gold to Stanley Cup, victory over illiteracy
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Of all the compelling stories of athletic achievement and challenges overcome that could be told by the 9,000 participants gathering in Israel for the 19th Maccabiah Games, it might be hard to find one to top Jacques Demers. He’s a coaching legend, having led the iconic… Read more »
How a man named Macabi helped bring 21 new countries to Maccabiah Games
BALTIMORE (JTA) — The first arrows Roxana and Rafael Gonzalez launch at the upcoming 19th Maccabiah Games will take flight from their fingertips, but also from Jeffrey Sudikoff’s imagination. Roxana, 25, and Rafael, 24, are part of the first Cuban delegation to participate in the Maccabiah, a quadrennial sports… Read more »
As European soccer racism festers, British pros coach Israelis in tolerance
(JTA) — Itzik Shanan and Abbas Suan watched last week as 100,000 English soccer fans sang along to a live performance by a multiracial quartet at London’s Wembley Stadium. Shanan, who started a campaign to eliminate racism from Israeli soccer, and Suan, a well-known Arab-Israeli player, were in Britain… Read more »
Hank Greenberg in extra innings
(Washington Jewish Week) — “I think Hank Greenberg was the great American hero,” Washington filmmaker Aviva Kempner says. “What he did on Yom Kippur. What he faced. He was our Jackie Robinson.” Thirteen years after the debut of “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” her documentary about the… Read more »
Israeli Paralympian Pascale Bercovitch eyes 2016 Games in Rio
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Pascale Bercovitch has a firm handshake and a ready smile. She’s hard to keep up with as she takes an elevator to a cafe on the ground floor of her gym in northern Tel Aviv and talks about her hopes to compete in 2016 in… Read more »
Inspired by past Jewish stars, champion skater Max Aaron eyes Sochi Olympics
NEW YORK (JTA) — With consecutive quadruple jumps at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Max Aaron launched himself not only to a gold medal and a national championship. The 20-year-old Arizonan also joined the ranks of Jewish athletes who have made it big For Aaron, that was even more… Read more »
Cavs’ Omri Casspi courting his opportunity to contribute
BALTIMORE (JTA) — Even as he sits on the Cleveland Cavaliers bench, watching yet another game proceed without him, Omri Casspi is working to improve. He studies his teammates and his opponents, focusing on the player he’d likely be defending if he were on the court. Casspi uses the… Read more »
Fans and family of Art Modell praying for Ravens Super Bowl victory, Hall of Fame entry
NEW YORK (JTA) — Every Sunday during the football season, a group of 30 diehard Jewish Baltimore Ravens fans suit up in purple pants, jerseys, socks, face paint and special Ravens tzitzit to watch the game together. If the game falls on a Saturday, the club gathers for a… Read more »
Jewish glory, frustration mark London Games
(JTA) – The London Olympics may have “lit up the world,” as organizing committee head Sebastian Coe put it, but for Jews the 2 1/2 weeks offered healthy doses of frustration and glory. On the plus side, new medalists such as America’s Aly Raisman gained the spotlight with her… Read more »
SUMMER OLYMPICS: Aly Raisman, Australians are Jewish stars in London
U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman confirmed her status as one of the stars of the London Olympics Tuesday, winning an individual gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a bronze on the balance beam after helping the U.S. women’s team take the gold last week. Raisman’s bronze came… Read more »
Six decades later, fibbing ex-flying ace really sees the London Olympics
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — After a 64-year detour, Mitchell Flint, a former fighter pilot for the United States and Israel, has finally landed for the London Olympic Games. In the summer of 1948, Flint, with a four-year wartime stint as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot in the Pacific under… Read more »
Some see Alex Gilady, the IOC’s Israeli, as villain in minute of silence defeat
LONDON (JTA) — Was the only Israeli on the International Olympic Committee instrumental in stopping a tribute to the Munich 11 at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Games? In the past few weeks, a war of words has erupted between the official, Alex Gilady, and the families… Read more »
Aly Raisman leads U.S. to gymnastics team gold
(JTA) — Aly Raisman, a Jewish American, won the floor exercise in helping the U.S. women’s team to the gold medal in the gymnastics competition at the London Olympics. The Americans on Tuesday won their first team gold medal in women’s gymnastics since the Atlanta Games in 1996, finishing… Read more »
LONDON OLYMPICS: Australia’s Steven Solomon takes fast track to Olympics
SYDNEY (JTA) — Moments after Steven Solomon walked into Ramat Gan Stadium for the opening of the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel, the Australian teenager sent his parents a photo with a message describing how amazing it was to be at his first “Jewish Olympics.” On July 27, Solomon,… Read more »
SUMMER OLYMPICS: With special prayers and kosher food, Jewish London embracing Olympic spirit
LONDON (JTA) — For Leslie Lyndon and the London Jewish community, it was a minor miracle. When Lyndon carried the Olympic torch through a north London neighborhood last week, it was more than representative of how Jewish Londoners have embraced the Olympic spirit. This was five years since Lyndon,… Read more »